Proxy Occupation: Managing Gaza as a Gateway to Dismantling the Palestinian National Project

The Palestinian issue today is witnessing a dangerous turning point regarding the nature and tools of Israeli occupation, which are no longer limited to direct military control but have expanded to include what can be termed "proxy occupation."

In this context, a new model for managing the Gaza Strip is being proposed, which involves handing over actual administration to an Arab or regional entity, in a calculated Israeli attempt to reoccupy the strip through intermediaries, while concealing direct control under the guise of non-Palestinian management.

Legally, occupation is defined as the actual control of a foreign power over land that is not under its sovereignty, and this fact is not altered by changes in methods of control or adjustments to its tools, as long as the occupying power continues to impose its will on the land and the population through security, political, and economic control.

Netanyahu's plan, which proposes handing over the administration of Gaza to a "responsible Arab entity," is nothing more than an attempt to conceal direct occupation behind proxy management, reflecting a strategy of transforming explicit military control into indirect dominance.

From a legal and political standpoint, this maneuver is an attempt to confer formal legitimacy on the occupation by involving an external party, creating a duality in administration and obscuring the real control exercised by Israel, especially through control of crossings, resources, and the security space.

This strategy does not diminish Israel's legal responsibility but creates ambiguity that hinders accountability and disrupts Palestinian and international efforts to stop the occupation and impose a just political solution.

Politically, this step cannot be separated from the attempt to dismantle the Palestinian national project, which relies on the unity of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as two essential components of the Palestinian political system.

Assigning the administration of Gaza to an external entity deepens the geographical and political division and weakens national institutions such as the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

This sustained division serves the interests of the occupation, which faces difficulties in imposing its dominance if confronted with a cohesive Palestinian unity.

At the regional and international level, there is a clear tendency among some parties to accept or tolerate this model as a "transitional" solution that alleviates tension and maintains relative stability, even at the expense of Palestinian rights.

These acceptances—even if implicit—contribute to entrenching new realities on the ground and reshaping the Palestinian scene towards external security and political management instead of a sovereign Palestinian state.

The success of "proxy occupation" in Gaza opens the door for its application in other ways in the West Bank, through intensifying the actual annexation of lands and imposing a local administration with limited powers.

This path threatens to end the idea of an independent Palestinian state and transform the conflict into mere management of the population and services under the dominance of the occupation.

This model enhances the fragmentation of Palestinian geography and transforms it into a collection of isolated islands subjected to strict control over the movement of people and goods.

The proxy occupation model represents a profound strategic shift in the tools and forms of Israeli control over Palestinian land.