Securing a role in the postwar plan

While all eyes are on Israeli operations in northern Gaza and Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates is quietly expanding its influence inside Gaza. Abu Dhabi plays a pivotal role in the supply of water and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave. 

In late August, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gaza Municipality, paving the way for the UAE to repair and maintain the water supply throughout most of northern Gaza, ensuring access to drinking water for war-weary Palestinians.  

“As a Municipality, we can't provide the water for all residents or areas in the city, so this funding will help us to ensure it easier,” Yahya al-Sarraj, the Mayor of Gaza City, said in a video after the signing ceremony.  “We hope that there will be more new projects.”  

The project is part of the UAE’s humanitarian operation in Gaza, Chivalrous Knight 3, which was launched in November last year. The deal with Gaza City followed a 54,000 US-Dollar deal in July to repair wells and water tanks in the southern city of Khan Younis. 

Mohammed Khalfan al-Sawafi, Emirati writer and political researcher, said that “the deal with the Gaza Municipality and the Chivalrous Knight operations are part of the UAE's positive steps to build up a practical base to end the war in Gaza and help Palestinians”.  

The UAE’s growing role in Gaza has been promoted by Egypt. The UAE established a floating hospital and a giant warehouse for humanitarian aid supplies in the city of Arish, where Egypt receives international aid bound for Gaza. On the Egyptian side of Rafah, the UAE established six water desalination plants to pump water into Gaza, supplying over 600,000 people. 

Before the Rafah border crossing was closed in May, the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) was given permission to move freely between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza to operate the UAE's field hospital and build shelters for displaced people in the strip. It also donated 5 million US-Dollar to support the emergency polio vaccination campaign in Gaza. 

Growing ties with Israel

“Prior to the war, it was Qatar who was the main Gulf actor in Gaza,” Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute, told Qantara. “Now, Israel is likely to welcome, instead, an increased Emirati—and maybe even Saudi—role.” Israel has green-light humanitarian aid deliveries by the UAE to Gaza, according to Goren, in order to open the door for current and future UAE involvement in the enclave. 

Relations between UAE and Israel have improved dramatically in recent years, paving the way for increased Emirati presence in Gaza today. The UAE made a normalisation agreement with Israel in September 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, which it signed alongside Bahrain. Since normalisation, ties between Israel and the UAE have grown rapidly. 

Rakha Ahmed Hassan, former Egyptian deputy foreign minister and member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), said in an interview with Qantara, that Abu Dhabi is now trying to balance its political positions—offsetting its growing allegiance to Israel by showing support and offering relief to the Palestinians.  

According to Hassan, the UAE helped to establish an alternative land route from the Persian Gulf via Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Tel Aviv. This facilitated the movement of goods that would usually reach Israel via the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which have been blocked by Houthi attacks.  

In return the UAE has been granted certain privileges. Movement in and out of the Gaza strip has been almost completely cut off since the Rafah crossing closure. On 11 September however, Israel allowed the UAE to transfer 97 wounded with 155 family members from Gaza for treatment in Abu Dhabi.  

Dahlan’s role in Gaza

The UAE’s influence in Gaza is closely tied to former senior Fatah politician Mohammed Dahlan, an adviser for the Emirati ruler Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Dahlan, who was born in Khan Younis, Gaza, in 1961, was the head of the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security Force in Gaza until Hamas took power in 2007. He was then expelled from Gaza and settled in the West Bank before falling out with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2011, the Palestinian Authority accused Dahlan of corruption and conspiracy to undermine Abbas’ authority. Since then, he has lived in exile in the UAE where he leads the Reformist Democratic Current, a Palestinian political faction that splintered from the Fatah movement.  

Despite his exile from the enclave, Dahlan has maintained close ties with powerful clans in Gaza, and later re-established positive relations with the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed earlier this month. Hamas granted Dahlan’s wife permission to visit Gaza in 2013 and 2015, when she helped to organise a UAE-funded mass wedding of 400 Gazan men and women. 

“Although Mohammed Dahlan was one of Hamas's staunchest opponents, he launched a dialogue with Hamas's new government led by Yahya Sinwar in 2016 as a part of efforts to break the deadlock of Palestinian reconciliation”, Ayman al-Reqb, a senior member of the Reformist Democratic Current, told Qantara.  

As a result of the reconciliation dialogue with Hamas, Dahlan's group was allowed to establish an initiative called Takaful (solidarity), to provide Emirati financial support to Gazans. Takaful paid victims of the 2007 war between Hamas and Fatah to aid the reconciliation process. It also helped in the reconstruction of damaged houses after clashes between Hamas and Israel in 2018 and 2021. 

In 2023, Takaful’s operations expanded, and the initiative became the centre of the Palestinian National Committee for Partnership and Development (NCPD), which is led by members of eight Palestinian factions of Gaza including Hamas. The NCPD is now signing reconstruction agreements with municipalities in Gaza on behalf of the UAE and leads the country’s aid operations in the strip.  

Ramez al-Amsy from Gaza City, today displaced in Khan Younis, told Qantara via WhatsApp that there has been a spike in popularity for Mohammed Dahlan in Gaza since the start of the war. “He is the best provider for aid to us, and during the war his support to us has been increased.” 

Dahlan as connecting link between UAE and Hamas

Since the outbreak of war in October 2023, also Hamas and Dahlan have maintained close ties. “For the first time, we saw a meeting between Hamas and the Reformist Democratic Current in Doha. This has broken many barriers,” al-Reqb explains. “We [the Reformist Democratic Current] reject playing a security role in Gaza, but we are ready to be part of political Palestinian arrangements to rebuild the strip and end up with a Palestinian state. To do that, we need Dahlan's relations,” he says. In other words, they need the UAE.  

The UAE, also benefiting from Dahlan's connections, is seeking to bridge gaps and to find a common political vision between Hamas and the Reformist Democratic Current, to pave the way for a possible joint administration that could manage Gaza after the war, analyst Tamara Haddad told Qantara.  

Hamas, meanwhile, faces a dilemma. Seeking to secure its political presence and not be excluded from a postwar administration the war, it has decided to cooperate with the UAE and accepted financial support to rebuild the strip, according to Haddad.  

Discussions on the UAE’s role in a postwar plan

Since the beginning of the war, the UAE has taken practical steps to secure a role for itself in the reconstruction and administration of the strip once the war is over. Humanitarian aid has helped the UAE secure its foothold. Increasingly, Israel and the US are looking to the UAE as a potential partner in a postwar administration that would replace Hamas.  

Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, told the Financial Times on 18 July, that Abu Dhabi had discussed plans with the US to fill the power vacuum in Gaza after the war: “The plan [for Gaza] has to be what we believe is needed: a humanitarian component to help the Palestinian people in Gaza recover from the terrible destruction, a security component, and a political component that can facilitate a sustainable resolution of the conflict,” she told the British paper.  

Goren of the Middle East Institute is critical towards that plan and suggests that Israel-UAE-US talks on the future of Gaza should include the Palestinian Authority: “A post-war governing plan for Gaza could be most successful if geared toward a return of a revitalized PA to rule there, with the support of regional and international actors, and with a pathway toward a two-state solution spelled out and implemented,” he said. 

Israel has reportedly backed a UAE-led multinational force to rule Gaza after the war, along with representatives of 15 major tribes in Gaza and of other Middle Eastern countries. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that US and Israeli officials are considering plans to empower Dahlan, who they see as a prospective leader of an interim security force in Gaza.  

Gaza’s tribes who play an important role in Israel’s postwar planning have so far refused to cooperate with the Israelis. “Our position is clear: the day following the war should be a Palestinian matter, and we do not accept any external interference,” said Akef al-Masry, commissioner-general of the Supreme Authority for Palestinian Tribes in Gaza. 

Most recently, reports emerged that US Secretary of State Blinken is considering a postwar plan for Gaza based on ideas developed by Israel and the UAE that could be presented after the presidential election. Blinken began his 11th trip to the region on Tuesday, with Israel his first stop, to discuss a ceasefire and a “day after” plan. 

Rakha Ahmed Hassan, the former Egyptian diplomate, states that any post-war plan is an “escape forward''. First it is necessary to manage the urgent need to stop the fighting and destruction in the Gaza strip. Months of concerted negotiations between Israel and Hamas have yet to yield a cease-fire deal. However, the UAE's aid workers are already on the ground to secure its foothold among Gazans to be ready for the post-war era.