• Proposal envisions $65bn for 18 different sectors such as housing, education, governance
• Turkiye to send disaster experts to help find prisoners’ remains as Israel, Hamas trade blame
• Trump threatens to ‘go in and kill’ Hamas if killings continue

RAMALLAH / CAIRO: The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister met Thursday with UN and diplomatic officials to present a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, despite uncertainties over his government’s role in the war-shattered territory’s future.

“I would like to believe that 12 months from now, the Palestinian Authority will be fully operational in Gaza,” Mohammad Mustafa said, days after a US-brokered ceasefire came into effect in Gaza.

The Gaza peace plan set out by US President Donald Trump does not rule out a Palestinian state, and also suggests allowing a role for the Palestinian Authority once it has completed a set of reforms.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight the establishment of a Palestinian state and has all but rejected the option of the Ramallah-based PA ruling over post-war Gaza.

Mustafa said the PA had crafted a five-year plan for Gaza that would unfold over three phases and require $65 billion for 18 different sectors such as housing, education, governance and more.

The plan builds on what was agreed at a summit of Arab countries in Cairo in March 2025, and Mustafa said that “police training programmes initiated with Egypt and Jordan are already underway.”

“Our vision is clear,” he told an assembly of Palestinian ministers, UN heads of agency and diplomatic heads of mission from his office in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Gaza shall be rebuilt as an open, connected and thriving part of the State of Palestine,” Mustafa said.

He also said that technical discussions were ongoing with the European Union over “secure crossing operations, customs systems, and integrated policing units”.

The EU is one of the largest donors to the PA.

Above all, the post-war reconstruction plan aims to make way for a single Palestinian government.

The process will “reinforce the political and territorial unity between Gaza and the West Bank, and contribute to restoring a credible governance framework for the state of Palestine,” said Mustafa.

Trading blame over bodies

Meanwhile, as Israel and Hamas continued to trade blame over the latter’s failure to hand over bodies of all deceased prisoners held in Gaza, Turkiye has deployed dozens of disaster relief experts to help search for the remains.

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A dispute over the return of prisoners’ bodies threatens to derail the truce and other unresolved elements of the peace plan, including disarmament of militants and Gaza’s future governance.

Hamas has handed over 10 bodies, which it said were all it could recover.

The recovery of the rest of the remains would require heavy machinery and excavation equipment, which was not currently available, they said.

Also on Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.

Later on Thursday, local health authorities said an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed two people.

Separately, US President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to “go in and kill” Hamas if it keeps killing people in Gaza, in an apparent reference to recent shootings of Palestinian civilians following a ceasefire deal with Israel.

Trump’s comments come just days after he said that the Hamas shootings – which included public executions – “didn’t bother me much” and described them as killings of gang members.

“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.

Trump did not elaborate on what he meant by “we.” But he said on Wednesday that “we won’t need the US military” to be involved in Gaza.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2025