Who is Samir Hulileh and why is he tipped as the man to govern post-war Gaza?

Hulileh has been giving interviews to Arab media in what appears to be a bid to gain support for the role

Samir Hulileh in an interview with national broadcaster Palestine TV in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on 22 February 2019 (screengrab)

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For consumers of Arab news media, Samir Hulileh's name has been making headlines since Monday.

The soft-spoken Palestinian economist, businessman, and former political aide to the Palestinian Authority (PA) has given interviews to the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, the Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiya, and Emirati paper, The National - among others - to float his candidacy as the next "governor" of Gaza.

Hulileh was transparent about being handpicked by the Biden administration in July 2024. But that was a relatively different time for the now ravaged enclave that has, by all accounts, become the legal definition of genocide.

July 2024 was also when the White House proposed the ceasefire agreement that was eventually adopted by Israel under US President Donald Trump in January 2025, so plans for the "day after" were well underway.

It remains unclear if Hulileh is still a potential candidate for the current Trump administration.

On Tuesday, in a 20-minute televised discussion with Al-Arabiya, he appeared to tone down his rhetoric, saying, "I am a businessman. I am not the next day, or the day after [plan]".

As "luck" would have it, he added, he was "chosen" for a role that he would only agree to if the PA - the only internationally recognised Palestinian political entity - agrees to it.

"Samir is very careful in his interview. He was very conciliatory to [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas and to the Authority, because, frankly, he is not a politician, as he admits all the time. He doesn't have a constituency," Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of Arab Center in Washington DC told Middle East Eye.

But by Tuesday evening in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, the PA issued a statement calling Hulileh's moves "disgraceful", and that they "circumvent" the PA's "official position rejecting the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank as part of an Israeli scheme".

"The Presidency condemns Hulileh’s statements and calls on him to stop spreading lies and attempting to cover up his shameful stance, which brings him under liability," the statement read, as circulated by the Wafa news agency.

Hulileh, currently the CEO of Palestine Development and Investment Ltd (PADICO), told Ma'an Radio Network that he has already engaged in talks with the Arab parties working on the Gaza file, namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and that Hamas has publicly said it is willing to step down to allow for a government of technocrats to assume interim control of the strip.

But any talk of the "day after" can only follow a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza - a notion that seems more and more remote as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now vows to occupy Gaza City and keep the war going.

For its part, the Trump administration appears to have pivoted to other foreign policy priorities, but Hulileh told Ma'an he believes that backdoor US pressure will lead to a "comprehensive deal" in "coming weeks".

Not the only horse in the race

Hulileh was born in Kuwait in 1957 and went to university in Lebanon in the early 1980s before joining the Palestine Banking Corporation and later leading the Palestine International Business Forum, the Palestine Trade Organisation, and the Palestine Stock Exchange.

From 1994 onwards, he took on various government roles with the PA, eventually becoming chief of staff to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who was most recently in office from December 2005 until March 2006, when he was succeeded by Ismail Haniyeh after the Gaza election that Hamas won.

US plans to eliminate security office coordinating with Palestinian Authority

Hulileh, Jahshan said, is ultimately "part of the financial elite in the West Bank", making him potentially "too close for comfort to the PA", which may not sit well with Palestinians in Gaza. Many in the enclave feel the PA is an ineffective and corrupt mechanism that Israel uses to collaborate with to exert control over Palestinian territories.

The PA is funded and trained by Washington, with assistance from Egypt and Jordan.

Nizar Farzakh, who was a former adviser to Palestinian leadership, told MEE that Hulileh's media rounds are "test balloons" to get "a better sense of what could be the objections and reservations, so that when actually they want to sit down, they already have ideas [and can] iron out a few rough edges".

But Hulileh is not the only candidate to lead a post-war Gaza.

Farzakh suggested that controversial political strategist Mohammed Dahlan could re-emerge for the post.

In 2006, Dahlan was elected as Palestinian Legislative Council representative for Khan Younis, the city in Gaza where he was born and raised. He was elected to the Fatah party's central committee in 2009.

But in 2011, he was dispelled from Fatah after a bitter row with Abbas and the party. He has lived in exile in the United Arab Emirates ever since.

"The Israelis love him. The Emiratis love him. He has good relations with the Egyptians. He has good relations with the Jordanians, somewhat. And he has half of Fatah," Farzakh said.

Fatah is the political party that currently forms the PA.

"He has good relations with Hamas, by the way. He fixed his relations with Hamas after he got kicked out of the West Bank," Farzakh added.

And governorship of Gaza is a highly coveted role, regardless of the time frame, he explained, given the reconstruction funds that are expected to flow into the enclave.

"It's a lot of money. Trump is going to spend money."

'Obscene'

With more than 61,000 Palestinians dead in Gaza, more than 150,000 wounded, and a full-blown famine underway according to human rights groups, there are questions surrounding Hulileh's timing for an Arab media blitz.

"I think it's obscene for any Palestinian to be talking about the day after," Jahshan said.

'There is no day after. There is no evidence of the day after. So for any Palestinian to be talking about that and helping with that, [he's] got to be naive'

- Khalil Jahshan, Arab Center

But Hulileh himself told Al-Arabiya that the broker between himself and the Americans is a prominent Israeli Canadian called Ari Ben-Menashe, who appears to be the current strategist for Hulileh's candidacy.

In October 2023, in a piece published just days before the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, Canada's right-wing paper, The National Post, profiled Ben-Menashe, calling him a "warlord" and "the lobbyist of last resort".

"As the head of a Montreal-based political consultancy, his specialty doesn’t attract blue-chip politicians in the West so much as red-hot leaders in global hot spots," the article said. "On behalf of fringe, often maligned leaders, he lobbies world powers for support and funding; navigates international diplomacy, security; and brokers trade deals. He’s a middleman, spin master, fixer".

Ben-Menashe spent a year in prison after violating the US Arms Export Control Act by selling aircraft to Iran in the late 1980s. He also previously had a career in Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate.

Even when pressed on the matter repeatedly, Hulileh maintained in his remarks on Al-Arabiya that he was chosen by the Americans, and not the Israelis.

"With the level of destruction that has taken place and the total control militarily by Israel of most of Gaza at this point, and the extent of the damage done, I just can't see anything being done in the context of the day after... without US and Israel approving it. It's just impossible," Jahshan told MEE.

"It's too late. I think the Palestinians have lost their momentum there, and there is no Arab momentum at all."

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Who is Samir Hulileh and why is he tipped as the man to govern post-war Gaza?

Who is Samir Hulileh and why is he tipped as the man to govern post-war Gaza?