Article - Palestinian Leadership in the Time of Pandemic

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Palestine brings back to focus central questions surrounding the resilience of Palestinian Authority leadership and the efficiency of its governance in times of crisis.

In this policy lab, Al-Shabaka analysts Mohammed Al-Khaldi and Fadi Quran join guest host Marwa Fatafta to weigh in on current emergency measures in the West Bank and their ramifications on the Palestinian people’s trust in leadership. They will also look at connections between the PA’s past public health policies and their impact on its capacity to handle the pandemic.

Marwa is a Palestinian writer, researcher and policy analyst based in Berlin. She leads Access Now’s work on digital rights in the Middle East and...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Mohammed Al-Khaldi is from the Gaza Strip and holds a Master of Health policy and Management from Al-Quds University-Abu Dis in 2012....
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Fadi Quran is a Senior Campaigner at Avaaz and a Popular Struggle community organizer. He previously served as UN Advocacy Officer with...
(2020, May 17)

Latest Analysis

 Politics
Inès Abdel Razek and Munir Nuseibah joined Al-Shabaka for a conversation on the politics behind the UNSC resolution, the implementability of the US-Israeli plan, and the scenarios now being advanced for Gaza and for Palestine more broadly.
 Politics
European empires used Christian missions to legitimize conquest in Africa and advance imperial interests, laying the groundwork for a political form of Christian Zionism. British evangelicals were central in transforming Christian Zionism from a theological belief into an imperial strategy by promoting Jewish resettlement in Palestine as a means of extending British influence. This fusion of religious ideology and imperial ambition endures in contemporary Christian Zionist movements, which frame modern Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and recast Palestinian presence as an impediment to a divinely ordained order. This policy brief shows how these narratives and their policy effects have taken root in the Global South, including in South Africa. In this context, Israeli efforts increasingly rely on Christian Zionist networks to weaken longstanding solidarity with Palestinians and cultivate support for Israeli occupation.
Al-Shabaka Fathi Nimer
Fathi Nimer· Dec 7, 2025
 Politics
On November 17, 2025, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2803 endorsing US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan for Gaza. The vote, pushed through after weeks of US pressure, establishes two supposedly “transitional” bodies to take control of Gaza: a Board of Peace tasked with overseeing aid delivery, reconstruction, and day-to-day administration, and an International Stabilization Force to take over security and disarm Hamas. Notably, the resolution does not refer to the genocide of the past two years, nor does it address accountability for it. Instead, this policy memo shows how the resolution repackages colonial control over the Palestinian people in Gaza, rewards the US—a co-perpetrator of genocide—with control over Gaza and its potentially lucrative reconstruction process, while simultaneously relieving the Israeli regime of all of its responsibilities as an illegally occupying power. Rather than advancing justice, the UN has once again undermined its own legal principles under US pressure.
Al-Shabaka Yara Hawari
Yara Hawari· Nov 20, 2025