Israel went to war after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre with two essential goals: to get back the hostages, and to destroy Hamas and any other potential deadly threats to Israel. Among the subsequent conditions Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also vowed to impose was that there would be no role for the Palestinian Authority in a postwar Gaza unless the PA underwent radical reform.

With the return of all the hostages, living and dead, and the Trump administration’s declaration that we have now entered phase two of the US president’s broad Gaza peace plan, however, Hamas still rules half of Gaza, is targeting Israeli troops in the other half, and is not planning to disarm. And the PA, in more and less overt guises, is assuming a significant role during this fuzzy period of semi-war, semi-ceasefire. The Mahmoud Abbas-led PA, that, in a previous iteration, Hamas murderously and swiftly booted out of Gaza when seizing power there almost 20 years ago.

At President Donald Trump’s instruction, the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been reopened to limited entry and exit of people. And it is the PA, along with Egypt and European representation, that is managing the process — a fact that official Israel prefers not to acknowledge. (Israel, it should be stressed, is vetting and thus determining who is permitted to come in or go out, just not at the crossing itself.)

Furthermore, the main body formally delegated to oversee Gaza’s civil governance, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), is largely a Palestinian Authority entity. Its Gaza-born chief commissioner, Ali........

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