Two Bodies, One War: The Struggle Over Gaza’s Future

Since October 7, Israel’s war is no longer about Hamas alone. It is about dismantling Gaza’s role as a hub of transnational jihad. For decades, Hamas has been more than a local “resistance” group—it has been a bedrock of global jihad, linked to Al-Qaeda in the 1990s and echoing ISIS after the Arab Spring. Gaza became the frontline of an ideology that insists the war against Israel must continue “until the Day of Judgment.”

Israel’s definition of victory must therefore go beyond military containment. Victory means severing Gaza from the ideological arteries that connect it to Turkey, Qatar, and the wider jihadist movement. Victory means transforming Gazans from “raw material” for endless holy war into citizens of a future not dictated by Islamist doctrine.

The Two Executive Bodies

The U.S. has quietly introduced a mechanism that reflects this ideological battle: two Gaza “executive bodies.” The duplication of names is not a bureaucratic accident—it is deliberate.

• The first executive body includes officials from Qatar and Turkey, states that have long antagonized Israel and nurtured Hamas’s ideological lifeline.
• The founding executive body, by contrast, is overseen by pro-Israel figures like Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, tasked specifically with regional relations.

This second body is designed in my opinion to have the real power. It is meant to carry more weight, to counterbalance Islamist influence and pressure that is expected from Turkey and Qatar from the first executive body, and to ensure Gaza’s political trajectory aligns with ending jihadist ambitions, and to cut Gaza off the so-called Palestinian cause.

Israel’s objection to Turkish and Qatari involvement is logical. Their inclusion would perpetuate the doctrine that Gaza must remain a jihadist front—Ard Al-Ribaat—to expel Jews from their historical homeland. But the real work—the ideological reorientation of Gaza—will be carried out by the founding executive body. In other words, the first body will end up hollowed, stripped of any real political power, while the second body will emerge as the true voice of Gaza—speaking on its behalf, projecting its political behavior, and shaping its regional identity.

The National Committee of Technocrats

At the same time, a new national committee for the administration of Gaza, composed of Palestinian technocrats, has been tasked with running daily affairs on the ground. Its chief commissioner, in his first statement from Cairo, embraced peace and democracy. Yet he added a telling line: he would strive for Palestinian self-determination. This seemingly small addition is worrying for Israel. It signals that Gaza’s governing body could drift into becoming another manifestation of the PLO or Hamas—politicized, nationalist, and potentially adversarial—rather than a neutral administrative authority focused on reconstruction and stability. Israel must make sure that this committee remain completely neutral and apolitical to prevent a creation of a West Bank–style government.

Why This Matters

If Gaza is to have a future beyond jihad, it will not be decided in tunnels or battlefields alone. It will be decided in boardrooms, in regional diplomacy, and in the ideological struggle between those who want Gaza to remain a factory of jihad and those who want it to become a society capable of peace. And in order to erase any resistance tendency or jihadi ambitions attached to the Palestinian struggle to “liberate Palestine from the river to the sea,” the founding executive committee must play a major role as the de facto foreign ministry of Gaza—projecting its political behavior outward, shaping regional relations, and ensuring that Gaza’s identity is defined by economic prosperity and stability rather than militancy.

The clash between executive bodies and the signals from the technocratic committee show how fragile this moment is. One camp seeks to preserve the ideology of perpetual jihad. Another seeks to dismantle it. And yet a third risk is sliding back into the old nationalist frameworks that have already failed to deliver peace.

The Stakes

The choice is stark: Gaza can be shaped into a nation of jihadists, as Hamas strives for, or into a population freed from the doctrine of eternal war. Israel’s task after October 7 is not only to defeat Hamas militarily but to end the ideology that sustains it.

The two executive bodies symbolize this contest. The technocratic committee adds another layer of complexity. Together, they will determine whether Gaza remains a jihadi front—or whether it finally steps out of the shadow of perpetual war.