Palestinian Authority fears being sidelined in Gaza by Trump and UAE

Looming over the Palestinian Authority’s battle with anti-occupation armed groups in Jenin are fears that US President-elect Donald Trump is amenable to sidelining the PA’s current leaders in a future post-war Gaza Strip in favour of the United Arab Emirates and its Palestinian allies.

Those concerns led the PA to launch a bigger raid on the city of Jenin as opposed to a smaller operation in the Tulkarm refugee camp that American officials originally floated, one Egyptian official, one former senior Israeli official, and one former senior US official told Middle East Eye this week.

The PA launched its operation at the beginning of December. Since then, fighting has killed at least 16 Palestinians, including six members of the PA’s security forces and at least eight Palestinian residents of the city, including a father and son.

The PA’s concerns about being sidelined in the post-war Gaza Strip come amid signs that Hamas and Israel may be inching closer to a ceasefire in the decimated enclave.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said earlier this week, “we’re very close” to a deal. The US has voiced similar optimism in the past, only for the talks to collapse.

The PA has been at the centre of the Biden administration’s plan for post-war governance of the Gaza Strip since the war erupted after the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, even as Israel has rejected a role for the PA.

But Trump’s return to the White House in less than two weeks has injected new uncertainty into the PA’s future.

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