The British newspaper The Times confirmed on Thursday that a British military team in the West Bank is working to prepare the Palestinian Authority to take over the administration of the Gaza Strip for the “post-Hamas era.”

This step brings to mind the project of American General Keith Dayton, who undertook the “Making a New Palestinian” program to retrain Palestinian Authority soldiers to thwart resistance operations against the occupation.

British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said, according to the newspaper: “The Palestinian Authority must assume responsibility in Gaza,” after the end of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Shapps explained that the British support team has been on the ground in Ramallah for more than ten years, pointing out that Britain “will consider increasing its ability to assist the Palestinian Authority.”

He pointed out that he met today in Ramallah, Interior Minister Ziad Hab Al-Rih, and the British military team.

Shapps added that London is working with Washington to improve the capabilities of the Palestinian Authority, noting that he discussed the matter with his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin.

Secret meetings to discuss the “post-Hamas” phase

Press sources revealed a secret European-American-Palestinian meeting to discuss “what comes after Hamas in Gaza,” and a secret international meeting was held in early November in Geneva with the participation of a delegation from the Palestinian Authority.

The sources added that European countries and an American delegation are participating in this secret meeting, accompanied by a high-ranking political delegation from the Palestinian Authority. They confirmed that some delegations from European countries sent members of study centers to participate in the meeting.

It pointed out the participation of Arab countries through study centers and non-diplomatic researchers in the meeting, and the meeting is titled “After Hamas in Gaza.”

According to the sources, the first question on the agenda is “What is the possibility of the fall of Hamas?”, while the meeting discusses, in the second place on the agenda, the scenario of governance in Gaza after Hamas.

The Dayton project resurfaces

It is worth noting that the statements of the British Defense Minister, about what happened in March, when the United States formed a council to coordinate security cooperation between the Authority and “Israel,” led by American General Keith Dayton, who personally assumed the task of supervising the preparation and training of the Authority’s security agencies, to improve their ability in the security function, and “thwarting armed operations.”

That training was titled “The Making of the New Palestinian,” as Dayton not only worked to institutionalize security cooperation between the occupation and the Authority and make it more useful, but also ensured that the training courses he supervised would contribute to imposing a new security doctrine on the security establishment in the Authority, so that it would lead to thwart resistance work.

The American website “Axios” revealed in early February, quoting American and Israeli officials, that the visit of US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, to the occupied West Bank and the Israeli occupation was to pressure the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to accept “a security plan that will restore the Authority’s control over the cities of Nablus and Jenin, and training a special Palestinian force to confront militants (i.e., resistance fighters) in the occupied West Bank.”