Samir Hulileh: The Palestinian Businessman Who Claims the U.S. Approached Him to Be the Governor of Gaza

Hulileh is inserting himself into a power struggle in Gaza, as Trump plans his Gaza Riviera, Netanyahu threatens to 'conquer' the enclave, and the PA fights for relevance.

Palestinian businessman Samir Hulileh. (Source: Facebook)

The Palestinian businessman Samir Hulileh was approached by the U.S. last year as a possible candidate to lead Gaza after the war, he told Drop Site News in an interview last week.

Hulileh said he was first tapped by the Biden administration as a possible “post war” governor of Gaza in July 2024. A politically connected Palestinian source in the West Bank told Drop Site that at least one Biden administration official met with Hulileh last year, though what was discussed at the meeting could not be independently confirmed.

Hulileh has never been mentioned publicly by either the Biden or Trump administrations, and as of last week, Hamas officials told Drop Site no one had mentioned him or a potential role in Gaza in any meetings with Hamas.

“Hulileh never really placed himself front and center in terms of politics in the past,” Abdaljawad Omar, an adjunct professor at Birzeit university in the West Bank, told Drop Site. “But it seems he's wanting to play a more political role and I think he found in the situation in Gaza, where Netanyahu doesn't want either the [Palestinian Authority] or Hamas to rule, this formula in place to insert himself as somebody who could be an alternative…that is not beholden to either the PA or Hamas and is American approved.”

A little-known Ramallah-based businessman and economist, Hulileh has taken on various roles in the Palestinian Authority (PA), including serving as assistant undersecretary at the Ministry of Economy in the 1990s, and as cabinet secretary to the PA for several months in late 2005 and early 2006. He later became head of the Palestinian Institute for Economic Policy Research, CEO of Palestine Development and Investment (PADICO), and chaired the Palestine Stock Exchange.

He said he was approached last year by Ari Ben-Menashe: an Iranian-born, Israeli-Canadian former arms dealer who was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. In his 1992 book, “Profits of War,” Ben-Menashe said he spent more than a decade “in the innermost circles of Israeli intelligence” and brokered secret Israeli arms sales on four continents. Over the years, his lobbying firm has worked with government officials in Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Myanmar.

Ben-Menashe “offered me this position not based on his personal capacity. He was doing that on behalf of the [Biden] administration,” Hulileh told Drop Site.

While Hulileh was first approached in July 2024, his name first publicly emerged with regard to the “post war” administration of Gaza in February, when Ben-Menashe registered in the U.S. as a foreign agent to lobby for Hulileh. The registration form shows that Hulileh paid Ben-Menashe $300,000 “to lobby the executive and/or legislative branches of the government of the United States and its agencies to support the efforts of Mr. Samir Hlaileh (sic) to become the leader of the new Political Authority of Gaza. Additionally, Registrant proposes to provide media and public relations services on behalf of the foreign principal's goals and activities. Registrant also provides lobbying services to the foreign principal in other countries.”

The document said the plan for Gaza “includes a U.S. and Arab (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE) military presence in Gaza, a new political status for Gaza approved by the United Nations, the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority. A new airport and a sea port will be built on land leased from the Egyptians.” The document read further: “Israeli interference in the affairs of Gaza will be eliminated together with any Hamas military presence.”

Hulileh reemerged in the news last week after he conducted several media interviews with Arab news outlets where he spoke about his potential role. In response to these appearances, the PA issued a statement published in the state news agency, Wafa, blasting Hulileh: “Responding to statements made by Samir Hulileh, in which he invoked the name of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and senior officials in connection with his disgraceful actions that circumvent the PLO and the PNA’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 added that “the Gaza Strip is an inseparable part of the State of Palestine, and that its administration is the exclusive responsibility of the PNA and the Palestinian government.”

Hulileh said the statement was “seriously endangering” his life, and he asked that it be withdrawn from the press. Hulileh characterized his current relationship with the PA as “very tense” but claimed [that] “there is respect. They understand what I'm talking about, and I'm not going completely outside the framework of what they do.”

He also appeared to play down his potential role. “I don't want people to feel that as if I'm looking for a role as a governor, and that's it. I'm not. All [that] I cared about in the last year is that the structure should be proper, so that whoever comes as a governor would be able to run Gaza properly,” he said. “I’m dealing with it as if I'm negotiating a proper setup for anybody to take that position. That's the major difference. So I am not a party to this. The Palestinian Authority is the party, but I was just telling them if I will accept this. I need the mandate to come from the Palestinian Authority. I need this to happen.”

In addition to PA approval, Hulileh is asking for commitments by donor countries for reconstruction, a clear security arrangement, and an agreement on the opening of border crossings for goods and people. “Hamas, in principle, I think should not have any role. Maybe we should consider having people who are close to them in one or two positions,” Hulileh said. “Nothing—zero—nothing more than that.”

Despite the PA’s public censure, Hulileh told Drop Site he has been in detailed discussions with the PA for the past year, and that he has had several meetings with PA president Mahmoud Abbas. “I'm not a party to the negotiations. I'm just the one who would be executing an agreement between the parties, including Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, and the donors, including Saudi Arabia, [the] Emirates, and so on,” Hulileh said.

The PA, led by the deeply unpopular President Mahmoud Abbas, has long been criticized as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation, including deploying its security forces in the occupied West Bank to help crush armed Palestinian resistance groups. Those actions helped pave the way for the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967 earlier this year. In April, the 89-year-old Abbas appointed Hussain al-Sheikh as his first vice president, a leading PA official widely seen as favored by the U.S. and Israel for his close relationships with Israeli officials, especially in coordinating security.

Over the past few weeks, Israel has even further intensified its genocidal assault on Gaza. The Israeli military is expanding its ground offensive and moving forward with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated plans to “take control” and ethnically cleanse Gaza City and other areas of the territory. Palestinians are dying every day from famine and malnutrition, or being shot and killed while forced to seek aid from militarized zones amid Israel’s policy of forced starvation.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu laid out “ceasefire” terms that would include the release of all remaining Israeli captives in one go and grant Israel complete security control of Gaza while allowing it to resume its military assault. Netanyahu has insisted that any future civilian administration to oversee Gaza not only cannot include Hamas, but it also cannot include the PA.

"The real goal for the Israeli government currently is to displace the Palestinians en masse, whether in Gaza and eventually also in the West Bank,” Omar told Drop Site. “So the Israelis don't see a need for anybody to govern from the Palestinian side, because they're going to take over land, they're going to replace the people with their own settlers, they're going to rebuild Gaza in an image that resembles their own illegal settlement construction throughout occupied Palestine more broadly." He added, "If Israel fails to displace the Palestinians and has to reckon with living with them, then it doesn't want any form of unity between various parts of Palestine. The West Bank and Gaza, in this context, having the PA rule them would build more momentum towards what is termed the ‘two-state solution,’ which Netanyahu also wants to avert. So keeping them apart in terms of governance, keeping them disunited in terms of the political machinery that rules them is also part of Israel’s goal for the foreseeable future."

In recent weeks, however, the PA has been trying to assert itself as ceasefire talks are underway. In a press conference at the Rafah border crossing on Monday, Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdel Atty stood alongside PA Prime Minister Mohamed Mostafa. The two laid out their vision for post-war governance in Gaza, claiming that the PA is the “only legitimate” entity that could assume governance of a Palestinian territory that would include Gaza.

“These are the different proposals being put forward for an end of war formula—the Israeli right wing fascist vision of ethnic cleansing on the one hand, and on the other is the Arab vision, which is a neutered, neutralized Gaza Strip, without resistance and under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, dependent on Arab regimes like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and others,” Omar said.

Hulileh pointed to security issues being raised during an Arab Summit in March, adding “that there will be training of a Palestinian police in Egypt and Jordan. It wasn't done intensively, very lightly and with little numbers, as I've heard, I don't know. However, that means, from my perspective, that you need an international or regional force to be in Gaza immediately after the Israeli withdrawal. So the issue is who will come into Gaza, with what arms, for how long, [and] under which command. All these discussions have to be raised. And, again, I'm not the one to raise them; it's the Americans.”

President Trump recently indicated his continued support for Israel’s military campaign, posting on social media this week: "We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be." When Trump met Netanyahu at the White House in February, he empowered Netanyahu’s agenda to forcibly displace all Palestinians from Gaza by proposing that Gaza should be emptied of Palestinians in order to create a U.S.-owned “Middle East Riviera.”

Hulileh added, “The American role is the one that will articulate and will force an agreement in the end, because if it's up to Israel and Netanyahu, they want the war to continue. So, basically, my belief is that if there will be somebody who can do it and stop the war, it'll be President Trump,” he said. “Trump is a different and difficult president. He changes his mind sometimes.”

Jeremy Scahill contributed to this report