The Palestinian Authority has rejected a joint Fatah-Hamas support committee that would manage the Gaza Strip after the current conflict as proposed by Egypt, according to Palestinian sources speaking to Qatar's Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper.
In talking to senior Egyptian officials, PA representatives explicitly opposed any "formula that would allow Hamas to return to ruling the Gaza Strip."
According to the report, a PLO delegation visiting Cairo informed Egyptian officials that such a committee would effectively endorse Palestinian division and Gaza's isolation. The delegation reportedly presented Egyptian leaders with a written document outlining the Palestinian government's own vision for Gaza's post-war governance.
The question of "the day after" the war has been one of the key points of all hostage deal negotiations, albeit one that is not publicly discussed as much as that of the release of the hostages themselves, the number and type of Palestinian prisoners to be released, and the question of when and how the war will end.
Israel's official war aims include the collapse of Hamas' military and governmental capacity alongside the release of the hostages, and it has not officially strayed from those aims despite the ongoing negotiations for the hostages' release.
In addition to more radical proposals from the right to expel or encourage the departure of Gazans from the Strip, the Israeli government has been casting about for an alternative to Hamas. Originally Israel tried to work with extended clans, but Hamas overpowered and assassinated a number of their leaders.
Now its sights are set on Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates forming a government with local Palestinian parties unaffiliated with Hamas to run the Strip and ensure the area no longer serves as a base for launching terror attacks or rockets at Israel.
For its part, Fatah is openly at war with Hamas in Judea and Samaria and does not want it to have any governmental power at all in the Gaza Strip.
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