Could Tony Blair run Gaza?

Many are vying to run the devastated territory.

- 

By rights, no one should want it. Gaza is a hellscape. Israel’s tanks have ploughed its cities to dust and devastated its infrastructure. Even in the past week, its soldiers have pushed half a million from Gaza City. And yet, as Israel fights what it says is its final campaign in Gaza, a battle is brewing over who will run the wasteland.

While Western powers line up to recognise the state of Palestine at the UN, behind the scenes, they are grappling over who should take over Gaza.

Since the war began in October 2023, over a dozen governments and government-sponsored think-tanks have offered plans for Gaza’s “day after”.

They range from the seven-page New York declaration unveiled by Mr Emmanuel Macron, the French President, and Mr Faisal Farhan al-Saud, the Saudi Foreign Minister, at the UN in July, to a 200-page “green paper” published in January by Hamas, the Islamist militants who retain some control of the strip. The governments of Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Israel, Palestine and America have drafted documents, as has a government-backed think-tank in the United Arab Emirates and businessmen in regional and Western capitals.

Perhaps most keen is Mr Tony Blair, a former British prime minister. Within weeks of the outbreak of war in Gaza, he had made repeated visits to Jerusalem and got his London-based foundation drafting a plan for a postwar mandate.