Representatives from the various US-led Board of Peace bodies involved in the postwar management of Gaza are meeting this week in Cyprus, as they seek to prepare a committee of Palestinian technocrats for entering the Strip in order to replace Hamas as governors of the war-ravaged enclave.

While an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries and a Palestinian official familiar with the matter characterized the Cyprus gathering as an opportunity to “recalibrate” the initiative after a rocky first six months, a Board of Peace official insisted last week that the meeting would be routine and that the process is largely moving along according to plan.

Indeed, the Board of Peace held a previously unreported additional workshop last week at the Egyptian coastal town of Ain Sokhna, which was attended by the entire panel of Palestinian technocrats, formally known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

The NCAG was unveiled in January — along with several other Board of Peace bodies — and its dozen-plus members subsequently moved from Gaza and the West Bank to a hotel in Cairo, where they have been readying plans for replacing Hamas.

While no date was ever announced for when the NCAG would enter Gaza, one member of the panel acknowledged mounting frustration, saying that they did not expect the transition to be as lengthy as it has been.

The NCAG member spoke on condition of anonymity, as the US-controlled Board of Peace has barred members from speaking to the media. NCAG chief commissioner Ali Shaath did a small number of interviews shortly after his appointment, but since then has largely avoided the public eye.

The Board of Peace’s Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov has insisted that the main obstacle preventing the NCAG from entering Gaza is Hamas’s refusal to give up its weapons.

A diplomat from each of the Mideastern mediating countries — Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — acknowledged that Hamas has sought to drag out negotiations on the issue. However, they also argued that Israel’s refusal to adhere to the terms of the first phase of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire has posed a major obstacle as well. They added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been increasingly uncooperative as the fall Knesset elections approach and that there is little hope for a breakthrough until after that vote is held.

In the meantime, NCAG members hold frequent meetings with foreign diplomats in Cairo and have undergone several training sessions run by senior Board of Peace official Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change government consulting firm (TBI).

Blair himself, along with roughly eight TBI staffers, is slated to participate in the Cyprus “strategic workshop” running from Tuesday to Thursday.

The Times of Israel revealed earlier this month that Blair has taken on a larger role in the Board of Peace, given the quantity of resources that his institute is able to provide.

What Egypt meeting says about Board of Peace direction

TBI was also involved in the planning of last week’s two-day “preparatory workshop” in Ain Sokhna. The Times of Israel obtained the agenda for that meeting, which offers a window into what the Board of Peace has planned for the rebuilding of Gaza.

The stated goal for the meeting was to “focus on detailed technical and operational discussions across the various NCAG commissions. The objective is to review........

© The Times of Israel