Once Hamas’s sworn enemy, a Palestinian exile rises as a postwar strongman

Some negotiators are increasingly drawn to Mohammed Dahlan as a temporary solution to a dilemma facing postwar Gaza: Putting someone in charge of security in the strip that Israel, Hamas and foreign powers such as the U.S. and Arab Gulf states all find palatable. The discussions are picking up speed as cease-fire mediators try and revive stalled talks. Negotiators were planning to convene in Doha, Qatar, this week but are now likely to meet next week.

Dahlan is a rare Palestinian leader who is independent of both Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and the Palestinian Authority that runs parts of the West Bank, making him someone the Israeli government could potentially work with, said Israeli political analysts. And in Washington, where the George W. Bush administration saw him at the time as a future Palestinian president, some officials have privately touted him as a key player since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war.

Dahlan, a wealthy businessman who grew up poor in Gaza, has been on the sidelines of Palestinian politics for over a decade and said recently that he doesn’t want to lead Gaza himself. But he has a political party that is active there and links to groups on the ground which could help make up a security force to bridge from the end of fighting to whatever comes next.

Since the war began, he has ferried between the United Arab Emirates—a wealthy Gulf state that could help fund Gaza’s reconstruction and provide troops for an international stabilization force—and Egypt, whose border with Gaza and Israel makes it integral to the territory’s future. Dahlan has advised both countries’ leaders and benefited from their patronage.

In Cairo, he has convened Gaza businessmen and the heads of rich families, who fled the conflict, to find ways to get desperately needed supplies into the territory. Companies and families in southeast Gaza that have historically been aligned with Dahlan have provided security to some commercial shipments.

In recent conversations with Hamas and Fatah, Dahlan has presented himself as someone who could eventually oversee aid distribution in a new Palestinian administration of Gaza, Arab and Hamas officials said.

Dahlan has the charisma, street cred and connections across the political spectrum to be successful, said Aaron David Miller, a veteran U.S. peace negotiator in the Middle East. “He’s incredibly effective and could deliver under circumstances that would allow him to deliver," he said, including a supportive Israeli government and backing from the U.S. and key Arab states.

Importantly, Hamas has softened its opposition to Dahlan, indicating to mediators in recent weeks that it could accept him as part of an interim solution to help end the war. Dahlan led Palestinian Authority security forces in a bloody U.S.-backed conflict with Hamas, after the U.S.-designated terrorist group won elections in 2006 to rule the Gaza Strip.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said the group is giving priority to an overall vision for postwar Gaza that is “based on national interest and national consensus" over opposition or support for specific individuals.

“It is unacceptable for any party to be imposed from above," he told the Journal.

Dahlan has said he now speaks to Hamas regularly and believes the group can’t be eradicated. Israel previously approached Dahlan to help put anti-Hamas Palestinians in charge of Gaza aid, the Journal has reported, a plan that Hamas moved quickly to stamp out.

According to an option currently under consideration, Dahlan would oversee a Palestinian security force of 2,500 men working in coordination with an international force, as Israeli troops pull out, Arab officials said. The Palestinian forces would be vetted by the U.S., Israel and Egypt and wouldn’t have clear loyalties to the Palestinian Authority, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to control Gaza, the officials said.

If successful, the force could expand to help with the reconstruction of Gaza, with training from the U.S. and Arab states, the officials added. Private Western security firms could also play a role, the officials said.

Other figures are also being considered to run the Gaza security force, including Majid Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence service in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Ehud Yaari, an Israeli analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Dahlan has had preliminary talks with Israeli security officials about a possible role in Gaza but Israeli acceptance isn’t assured.

“Dahlan can play a role, but he cannot be the solution. He can share the load," said Yaari.

The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on Dahlan.

From his villa in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., Dahlan, 62, has laid out an expansive vision for the impoverished and now largely destroyed Palestinian territory where he was born and raised in Khan Younis. He still has family living in Gaza.

His ideas largely echo those of the Arab states involved in either the cease-fire talks, such as Egypt, or in discussions about funding the reconstruction of Gaza, such as the U.A.E. They include a transitional government to administer security and basic services until more permanent arrangements could be made, potentially through parliamentary elections.

Dahlan, who was arrested repeatedly by the Israelis for his involvement in the Fatah youth movement and learned to speak Hebrew in prison, was a close adviser to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He later had a falling-out with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and moved to the U.A.E. before he was convicted in the West Bank of corruption charges, which he denied.

“He’s always remained on the scene and yet not on the scene, as he hasn’t been to Palestine since 2011," said Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian peace negotiator who worked with Dahlan. “He may have left Gaza but Gaza never really left him."

Dahlan remains a rival of Abbas. Dimitri Diliani, a spokesman for Dahlan’s Democratic Reform Current, said the faction wants to relegate Abbas’s presidency to a ceremonial role. There must be room for Palestinian factions beyond Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah to have a say in Gaza’s future, Diliani said.

A future role securing aid would build on Dahlan’s work in recent months to get desperately needed goods into the embattled enclave, where a breakdown in civil order has impeded international aid delivery.

Dahlan associates could end up helping run the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt along with international partners, Egyptian officials said. The Hamas-run government operated the crossing until May, when the Israeli military seized the Gaza side of the 9-mile border area. Israel wants to maintain permanent security oversight there to prevent weapons smuggling, but Egypt says that would violate its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

An empowered Dahlan would risk sidelining the Palestinian Authority, which sees him as a fugitive. It would also present a wrinkle for the Biden administration, which has said that a revitalized Palestinian Authority should eventually take power. Further, Israeli officials oppose a Palestinian state, which the U.S. and Arab states that could fund reconstruction say is essential for regional security.

Among Palestinians, views of Dahlan are mixed. In a leadership election, he would receive around 8%, almost entirely from Gaza, according to a June poll by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. That puts him about even with Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar but far behind Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and longtime Fatah official Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail on charges of murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

Fatma Waheed, who lives in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, described Dahlan as self-serving but would accept his return if it was the only way for Gaza to be rebuilt and its borders reopened.

“I really want Hamas to leave us alone," said Waheed, 37. “If Dahlan is the one to replace them, then he is welcome."

Abeer Ayyoub and Dov Lieber contributed to this article.

Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com