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The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister met Thursday with UN and diplomatic officials to present a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, despite uncertainties over his government’s role in the war-shattered territory’s future.

‘I would like to believe that 12 months from now, the Palestinian Authority will be fully operational in Gaza,’ Mohammad Mustafa said, days after a US-brokered ceasefire came into effect in Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority has not had a role in Gaza’s governance since its rival Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007, though it still provides some services in the territory.

The Gaza peace plan set out by US president Donald Trump does not rule out a Palestinian state, and also suggests allowing a role for the Palestinian Authority once it has completed a set of reforms.

But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight the establishment of a Palestinian state and has all but rejected the option of the Ramallah-based PA ruling over post-war Gaza.

Mustafa said the PA had crafted a five-year plan for Gaza that would unfold over three phases and require $65 billion for 18 different sectors such as housing, education, governance and more.

The plan builds on what was agreed at a summit of Arab countries in Cairo in March 2025, and Mustafa said that ‘police training programmes initiated with Egypt and Jordan are already underway.’

‘Our vision is clear,’ he told an assembly of Palestinian ministers, UN heads of agency and diplomatic heads of mission from his office in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

‘Gaza shall be rebuilt as an open, connected and thriving part of the State of Palestine,’ Mustafa said.

He also said that technical discussions were on-going with the European Union over ‘secure crossing operations, customs systems, and integrated policing units’.

The EU is one of the largest donors to the PA.

Above all, the post-war reconstruction plan aims to make way for a single Palestinian government.

The process will ‘reinforce the political and territorial unity between Gaza and the West Bank, and contribute to restoring a credible governance framework for the state of Palestine,’ said Mustafa.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said that he was determined to ensure that Hamas hands back the remains of hostages still in Gaza, adding that the fight ‘is not over yet’.

Under a ceasefire agreement, Hamas returned the last 20 surviving hostages to Israel, and said it had handed back all the bodies of deceased captives that it could access.

The remains of 19 hostages are still unaccounted for, with Hamas saying it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from the ruins of Gaza.

At a state ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the October 7 attack, Netanyahu said Israel was ‘determined to secure the return of all hostages’.

‘The fight is not over yet, but one thing is clear — whoever lays a hand on us knows they will pay a very heavy price,’ he said.

Earlier, an Israeli group campaigning for the return of the hostages demanded that the government delay implementing the next stages of the truce if Hamas fails to return the remaining captives’ bodies.

During the war, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum consistently demanded an end to the fighting to allow the return of those taken hostage during the October 7 attack.

‘As long as Hamas breaches the agreements and continues to hold 19 hostages, there can be no unilateral progress on Israel’s part,’ the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

It urged the government to ‘immediately halt the implementation of any further stages of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to blatantly violate its obligations regarding the return of all hostages and the remains of the victims’.

According to Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, the next phases of the truce should include the disarming of Hamas, the offer of amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons and establishing the governance of post-war Gaza.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz on Wednesday threatened to resume fighting if Hamas does not honour the terms of the agreement.

‘If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war,’ a statement from his office said.

But Trump appeared to call for patience in order to safeguard the deal.

‘It’s a gruesome process, I almost hate to talk about it, but they’re digging, they’re actually digging,’ he said of Hamas’s search for hostages’ remains.

‘There are areas where they are digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies, you wouldn’t believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble.’

The families of surviving hostages were able, after two long years without their loved ones, to rejoice in their return.