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CAIRO:  The main Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, said Friday they had agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would take over the running of post-war Gaza.
During a meeting in Cairo, according to a joint statement published on the Hamas website, the groups agreed to hand “over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent technocrats.”
It said the committee would “manage the affairs of life and basic services in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions.”
The statement also said the factions had agreed to work on unifying a common position “to confront the challenges facing the Palestinian cause.”
It called for a meeting of all forces and factions to “agree on a national strategy and to revitalize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
Hamas is not part of the PLO, which is dominated by its longtime rival Fatah.
An informed source told AFP on Thursday that delegations from Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo to discuss the second phase of a US-backed ceasefire plan in Gaza.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that both sides agreed to “continue meetings in the coming period and to work on organizing the Palestinian internal front in the face of the challenges posed by the Israeli government.”
Alongside the Hamas-Fatah talks, Egypt’s intelligence chief Hassan Rashad met senior officials from key Palestinian factions.
They included Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, as well as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — both factions within the PLO.
Hamas and Fatah have a history of deep political rivalry, which flared into fighting for a time after a 2006 election, and which has hindered efforts at Palestinian national unity.
In December 2024, they agreed to create a committee to jointly administer post-war Gaza. The agreement was criticized, particularly by members of Fatah.
Hamas, which seized power in the territory in 2007, has already made it clear that it does not wish to govern the post-war territory, but has pushed back against the insistence that it disarm its fighters.

NICOSIA: A court in Cyprus on Friday sentenced an Israeli businessman to five years for developing and selling luxury apartment complexes in the breakaway northern part of the divided island without permission of the Greek Cypriots owners of the land.
The case is one of several where Cypriot authorities seek to bust developers and realtors who illegally make money off Greek Cypriot properties in the breakaway north — lands that their rightful owners cannot access because they are located in the Turkiye-backed region.
The criminal case also underscores the deeply contentious property rights in Cyprus, which was split in 1974 when Turkiye invaded in the wake of an Athens junta-backed coup aiming at uniting the island with Greece.
Some 160,000 Greek Cypriots subsequently fled the north where Turkish Cypriots declared independence that only Turkiye recognizes. At the time, around 45,000 Turkish Cypriots living in the south, where the internationally recognized government is seated, moved to the north.
Cyprus’ internationally recognized government in the south has no control over affairs in the breakaway north. Decades later, Greek Cypriots that left the north are demanding that their right to their property are respected in numerous rounds of United Nations-mediated talks that have failed to heal the rifts.
The Aykout case
Israeli businessman Shimon Mistriel Aykout, 75, who also holds Portuguese and Turkish citizenship, was arrested in June 2024 as he crossed from the north into the Greek Cypriot part of the island. Last week, he pleaded guilty to 40 counts of building and selling apartments in the north.
The three-judge panel said it was compelled to hand down a tough sentence because of the seriousness of the crime.
Between 2014 and 2024, Aykout headed the Afik Group of Companies that developed some 400,000 square meters (4.3 million square feet) of Greek Cypriot-owned properties in four villages in the north. Cypriot authorities estimate the combined value of the development exceeds 38 million euros ($44 million.)
Aykout’s supporters have campaigned for his release both in Israel and the United States on health grounds, saying he suffered from prostate cancer. The court rejected arguments for him to be released for medical examination abroad, saying Cypriot medical facilities are more than adequate.
The court said the sentence takes into account time that Aykout had served in police custody.
A ‘clear message’ to all
After the sentencing, prosecuting attorney Andreas Aristides told reporters that Cyprus’ ethnic division does not diminish the rights of the lawful owners of property in the north.
The court’s decision sends “a clear message ... that if you buy, build or otherwise use land in the occupied areas that belongs to Greek Cypriots, you’re committing serious criminal acts,” he said.
Simos Angelides, a lawyer in Nicosia, Cyprus’ capital, said Friday’s ruling and similar cases have “triggered panic” in the north’s booming real estate and construction industry and “shattered the illusion of legal impunity.”
The message is simple: “Do not exploit stolen property, as you may soon have an arrest warrant in your name,” Angelides, who was not involved in the Aykout case, told The Associated Press.
The EU’s top court and the European Court of Human Rights have affirmed Greek Cypriots’ rights to property ownership in the north. But the ECHR has also backed the establishment of a Turkish Cypriot property commission to which Greek Cypriots can apply to either be compensated for their property or reclaim it.
Other cases
Over the last year, Cyprus has prosecuted another Israeli, a Ukrainian, a German and two Hungarians in similar cases. Of them, two Hungarian women who earned commissions as real estate agents in the north were sentenced in May to 36 months and 15 months, respectively. The other cases are still pending.
Turkish Cypriot authorities have reacted angrily to the prosecutions. Tufan Erhurman, a center-left politician elected as Turkish Cypriot leader this week, has said that the issue of Greek Cypriot property in the north can only be resolved through negotiations.
Cafer Gurcafer, head of the Turkish Cypriot Contractors’ Association, warned that investors could scatter since as much as 85 percent of privately owned property in the north could become entangled in similar prosecutions.
The case of five Greek Cypriots arrested on spying charges after crossing into the north in July is widely seen as retaliation for the prosecutions.
A month before their arrest, Turkish Vice President Cevded Yilmaz said attempts to harm the Turkish Cypriot economy through politically motivated legal means would “not be tolerated.”
Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides stresses that the judiciary is independent but that Aykout’s guilty plea vindicates his government’s policy to shine a light on illicit property exploitation in the north.