Introduction to New Yorker essay by Andrew Whitley, Chair, Britain Palestine Project
14 October 2025
With a precarious ceasefire in place in Gaza, for now at least, its exhausted people can begin to look ahead more than one day at a time, beyond the simple act of survival until the next dawn. By the grim standards of the past two years, that modest achievement is not one to be sniffed at.
At the same time, attendees at glitzy international conferences, Sharm el-Sheikh today, Paris tomorrow, New York the next, then Cairo, are busily planning Gaza’s future under foreign auspices. But where are the voices of Gazans themselves in this planning merry-go-round? What do they want? How do they view Hamas today after all the lives lost and terrible destruction caused?
Mohammed Mhawish, a Gazan journalist and writer living in exile after his home was destroyed in the war and he was forced to flee, provides us with important clues. For all its faults – and they are legion, notably the absence of international law and any real Palestinian agency – Mhawish believes the Trump plan opens up a narrow opportunity for a better future, provided Palestinians “can turn its vague text into leverage.” That’s the challenge he lays out.
It’s easy to decry the grubby commercialism infusing the Trump plan. Its mercantilist approach should not be a surprise. After all, it was drawn up by two self-described “real estate guys” who happen to be close to Gulf billionaires looking for investment opportunities. The vague document signed by many regional and world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh is a values-free zone. But there is no alternative on offer, not least from the internationally recognised Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.
In this introspective and penetrating essay published by the New Yorker, Mhawish rightly stresses that any incoming administrators of the Gaza Strip must have legitimacy in the eyes of its public. As I know at first-hand, having worked there with the United Nations, Gaza is a tightly knit society. Everyone knows the respected families and those distinguished figures who have achieved great success in different fields. They also know who are the dishonest and corrupt in their midst, gangsters like the Doghmush clan who were armed and backed by the Israeli Defence Force during the war, to fight Hamas and create chaos.
The most urgent priority must of course be the restoration of basic security. Those responsible should be charged with protecting the traumatised population, not acting as a security subcontractor for Israel. But not far behind on the “to do” list must be the drafting of credible proposals for the reunification of the Palestinian territories under a single government capable of commanding respect at home and abroad, not least in Israel. That task falls to Palestinians alone, as Mhawish reminds us.
Read full New Yorker piece here: Gaza’s Broken Politics by Mohammed R. Mhawish