Palestinian engineer Ali Shaath tapped to administer devastated Gaza

Gaza native and former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath will head the new technocratic committee set to administer the devastated Gaza Strip, mediating countries announced on Wednesday.

A seasoned civil servant largely unknown to the wider public, Shaath was born in the southern city of Khan Yunis in 1958, later leaving to study in Cairo, a family member told AFP.

He became a civil engineer, and previously served as the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s deputy minister of planning and international cooperation, as well as undersecretary for the ministry of transportation and communications, among other portfolios.

In a technical and detail-oriented interview on Palestinian Basma Radio on Wednesday, Shaath spoke at length on rebuilding the Gaza Strip, ravaged by more than two years of war and intensive bombing.

“We are not talking about ‘reconstruction’ but construction anew,” he said, highlighting the immediate need for shelter for Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, almost all of whom have been displaced at least once during the war.

“We will set plans for water, well rehabilitation, water purification, and treated water — water is the secret to health, education, hospitals, all of which were destroyed,” he added.

On the question of the vast amounts of rubble left from Gaza’s destroyed buildings, Shaath floated the idea of pushing it into the adjacent Mediterranean to reclaim land.

He told the broadcaster he had been contacted about the post by Bulgarian diplomat and politician Nickolay Mladenov.

Under US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, Shaath’s committee would operate under the supervision of a so-called “Board of Peace”, expected to be led on the ground by Mladenov and chaired by Trump himself.

‘Brains’, not weapons

Regarding his jurisdiction, Shaath said that under the terms of the US-brokered agreement, his committee would gradually take over 50 percent of Gazan territory currently under Israeli control, before expanding to cover the entirety of its area.

He added that security and coordination with armed groups were not part of the committee’s mandate.

“The commission is not an army; it is 15 Palestinian experts in reconstruction, assisted by staff — brains more than weapons,” he said.

Gaza’s technocratic committee will meet for the first time Thursday in Cairo, a Palestinian official told AFP.

Five members of the committee currently in the Gaza Strip will travel via the Rafah crossing to bordering Egypt for the meeting, another Palestinian official said.

Palestinian factions including PA president Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah party and its rival Hamas expressed their support for the committee’s composition.

Hamas has said it does not seek a role in any future governing authority in Gaza, and would limit its role to a monitoring capacity.

One employee of an international organisation working in the Palestinian territories, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that given his relatively low profile Shaath “didn’t strike me as an obvious choice”.