Watch the conversation with Mohammad Mustafa, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026, discussing economic recovery, governance and global cooperation.
In a Davos conversation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa framed the “Board of Peace” as a pathway that must be treated “as a full package,” beginning with a ceasefire and ending in “self-determination and statehood.” While endorsing President Trump’s 20-point plan and citing growing international recognition of Palestine, Mustafa emphasized immediate humanitarian priorities in Gaza, noting that “people are still dying every single day” and that “more than 450 people… have been killed since the ceasefire.” His most urgent operational request was pragmatic: open borders, ease “dual use” restrictions, and accelerate temporary housing because “people cannot wait on a temporary shelter.”
Mustafa outlined a governance architecture: a top-level Board of Peace, an Executive Board, and a technocratic Palestinian committee, working alongside existing Palestinian ministries to restore services and prepare early recovery and reconstruction plans with the UN, World Bank, and EU. He underscored the indispensable role of Egypt and Jordan in access, security training, and reconstruction coordination.
Positioning Oslo as the still-binding legal framework, Mustafa criticized Israeli actions: withholding “$4 billion” in clearance revenues, halting 200,000 Palestinian workers, expanding checkpoints, and intensifying West Bank incursions. Despite constraints, he highlighted a reform program across finance, institutions, rule of law, and services, claiming “more than half” of 60 measures completed. Economically, he described a severe contraction: GDP down 30% and unemployment averaging 51%, while insisting Palestinians will endure and “get out of this strong.”
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to this special conversation with, Doctor Mohammed Mustafa, Prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority. It's a very special session for us because it's building on a long standing tradition of welcoming you. Mister Prime Minister in Davos. You've been now, in your position for a while. But I also remember you've been coming in your previous capacity. So I just wanted to thank you for your long standing engagement with the World Economic Forum.
Thank you.
I'm Morag Duschek, I'm managing director at the forum. And I've had the pleasure in the past to also work with you as I, as I used to work on the Middle East here at the forum. So this brings a lot of great memories. Okay. We would conduct this as a conversation. And so our go straight in, if you don't mind. We are here, on a day that President Trump is, going to be here as well later today. He has previously announced the Board of Peace. And so how from your standpoint, how do you feel about, the Board of Peace? What does it mean also for your government?
Well, as you know, thank you for, having me at the World Economic Forum and for this special conversation. And I'd like to also to commend the forum for keeping the Palestinian issue. Also, part of the discussion, obviously, it's unfortunately, actually that our people have to be in the news all this time, given the fact that we have been trying to get our own independence and statehood and self-determination for decades now, we will continue our cause, irrespective of what happened in Gaza or in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem and Board of Peace. And whatever happens, I think our goal remains a national independence and a dignified life for our people. And I thank you for supporting this, through the forum. So, the Board of Peace is part of, as you know, what was agreed in the Security Council resolution 1802 803 and part of the plan that President Trump has presented to the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting was endorsed by many countries around the world. And obviously as a state of Palestine. We also endorsed this plan. The plan starts with a ceasefire and ends with self-determination and statehood for the Palestinians. And we want to look at this as a full package. We as you know, last summer, last September, we were in New York. The General Assembly voted for endorsing the. Two state solution implementation. The New York Declaration was approved by 142 countries. By now, 160 countries recognize Palestine as a state. So we want to build on this, and we know that Gaza has delayed this project, but we are determined to deal with the issue of Gaza in terms of dealing with the needs of our people, but also in a way that will ensure at the end of the day that Gaza, West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unified as one state, independent and sovereign for our people to live in, in dignity and respect. So for us, first things first for me, out of this plan, 20 points plan, the most important priority for us is what's happening for our people in Gaza today. And unfortunately, this issue, despite the fact that four months have passed since the ceasefire, people are still dying every single day. People are still dying. More than 450 people in Gaza have been killed since the ceasefire. So yes, there is a ceasefire, but ceasefire is not fully observed because of the Israeli military actions. But assuming that we have made progress on this, the next important thing is to open the borders, to bring in as much humanitarian assistance as possible. This improving, but we are not there yet. But I want to highlight another dimension of this that's critical to the livelihood of our people in Gaza, which is the temporary shelter. We people will wait for a full reconstruction of Gaza that has been destroyed. 85% of all infrastructure and houses were destroyed. People can wait until that is fixed. People can wait until universities are rebuilt and reopen. But people cannot wait on a temporary shelter. Simple temporary shelter to sit, as a family together and start dealing with their lives. So my first plea to everybody is let's focus on what matters. First. Let's open the borders, get Israel to to bypass this doctrine called dual use usage, dual use, and allow as much temporary housing units as possible, so can so that our people who are displaced can live decently in a decent fashion until we deal with the other issues. So my message therefore is let's move fast on things that matters for our people. Temporary shelter is critical. After that, we need to deal with the security issue, with the governance issue, with the reconstruction issue, economic recovery issue, and then hopefully reaching to reunification between Gaza and the West Bank and then hopefully end all of that, all of this by the end of the interim period of two years. And with one Palestinian state, with one governance system, one law, one security system. And finally, hopefully Palestinians can live like everybody else in freedom and peace.
Mr. Prime Minister, thank you. Help us understand how how will that work, the link between your government and then there is a structure of the Board of Peace. How shall we understand it?
Well, currently, it seems that we have the Board of Peace as the first layer. The top layer. That's the one that's been talked about these days. And there is a layer below that which is called the Executive Council or the Executive Board. And then below that there is a Palestinian committee made of professionals, technocrats, experts in their fields who will help run things on the ground. So that's the structure of the board. Peace. Now our government, although we don't have full control in Gaza because of the current Israeli occupation and before that, Hamas control. But we have many ministries and agencies working on the ground. So we're not, like about to start a new thing. We want to work with the Board of Peace, with the Executive Board and with the committee to ensure that they do their part of things. But we also want to see our government institutions to continue to operate, work with the committee, provide support and enabling environment so that they can do what they can, but also prepare, as I said, for the reconstruction effort, we have been working very hard with the UN institutions, with world Bank, with the European Union to be as ready as we can for the early recovery and reconstruction. We have detailed plans ready for early recovery work and for the reconstruction work. In addition to that, we will also start working on the governance aspect. And we already started the work with UNDP, with the government of Germany and the Government of Norway, who offered their support to our efforts to start immediately working on revamping the institutions in Gaza. Reunifying what we have in Gaza, improving its capacity, but also, as I said, reintegrating with the West Bank. So the priority for us is to work with, I guess the Board of Peace will be at a higher level, probably will not work so closely with them, but they probably will focus more on the fundraising aspects, as they call it. But below that, the the executive board, which is which has a number of distinguished people, including, Nickolay Mladenov, which you and I know very well from the past, Nikolai will be, like the high representative on behalf of this executive board, and he will be working closely with the government and with the committee to ensure that the basic services are restored and the reconstruction efforts start.
And how important are the neighboring countries, for example, Egypt and Jordan, in, helping this process, hopefully in a positive direction?
Well, the Jordan and Egypt are not just contributors to this. They are key stakeholders in this process. They have always been there for us as Palestinians, and they continue to do so. And I want to take this opportunity to thank the leadership of Egypt and Jordan for their support. Of course, many others in the region, including Saudi Arabia, and many other countries have been great supporters of our efforts. And I want to thank all of them, all countries in the region for their support. But their role in the next phase is also very critical. Things are quite complicated as, as we all agree, and there are so many things has to be done right so that we can hopefully get to the success that we all are aiming for. It's not straightforward to go and rebuild Gaza. It's not going to be straightforward to secure Gaza. It's not going to be easy to get the funding necessary, as long as the Israeli military is still on the door and can come back any time, close the border any time, and decide what happens and what doesn't happen. So there are a lot of challenges. Neighboring countries are critical to ensure that one, continuing support for the Palestinian people on the ground. Egypt is a neighboring country for next door. For Gaza, it's the only opened entry point today for for Palestinians with the rest of the world. So the role of Egypt is extremely important. We are working with Egypt and Jordan also on other issues, of course, on the political front, but also in the security front. They have in the past trained our security forces, and they will do more in the future so we can rebuild the security system in Gaza. So we are already working with them on that. We're already working with Egypt on the reconstruction effort. And, and we are also working with Saudi Arabia on many other things, several other things, including the reform program. And, that's also critical for us. But also, as you know, Saudi Arabia, along with France and many other partners, have been working with us on the two state solution and its implementation via the, you know, the, New York Declaration that was approved by the security, the General Assembly last September. So the role of the countries in the region is very critical and security aspects in the governance aspects and the reforms aspects, but also on the political aspect.
No. Thank you. And if I can just, maybe go a little more in history, you know, that, this organization was quite active in the 1990s, in the follow up to the Oslo Accords, here and also at some special meetings, there was an economic momentum as well at that time within the Oslo framework. And I know that I think you're asked that question a lot, but of course, it's top of mind of people. How does this current situation relate to the Oslo Accords, to the two state solution? Are we still within within that framework, or are we now departing to some other frameworks? Any thoughts on that?
Yes, it's a very good important point because actually that provides the legal framework for all should provide the legal framework for everything that we are doing now. This is an international treaty, Oslo agreement. Whether we like all of it, we like part of it. Some people say it was supposed to to have expired in five years, and a state would have been established by now, etc.. Despite all of that, the fact is that Oslo Agreement is an international treaty that was signed between the PLO, Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government signed at the white House. The US was a witness to this, and the documents were sent to the United Nations. After that became an international treaty. So what governs the relationship between us and Israel until this moment is actually this treaty, this agreement? We know that it should have been the work should have been completed by now. The permanent solution of two state solution should have been negotiated but also implemented. That didn't happen yet, but we still believe that until such thing, we until we implement the two state solution fully, there also agreement is the legal framework that governs the relations. Now, in this Oslo agreement, among other things, it talks about Gaza and the West Bank, part of one system, one governance system. Palestinian Authority therefore has jurisdiction and sovereignty on not only Gaza, but not only West Bank, but also Gaza. And according to the Oslo agreement, Israel should have withdrawn by now from all of the West Bank, most of the West Bank and also Gaza. And they did withdraw, as you know, in 2005. They came back after 2000, after 2023 war with Hamas. And obviously we want to see an end to all of this, and we want to see Israel also respecting the Oslo agreement, withdrawing from Gaza and allowing Palestinian Authority based on Oslo agreement to come back and govern Gaza as well. But since you mentioned the Oslo agreement, another important aspect of the Oslo agreement is also the economic relations that that are established between, Palestinian Authority and Israel and based on the interim arrangement, that's Oslo agreement. We should have ended five years after it was signed. There was an agreement on so many important things to do with trade, to do with the financial system, the monetary system, the taxes, how they are collected and how they are paid, etc. the unfortunately, like almost everything else in the security on the, withdrawal from our land, the Israelis did not respect, also the economic part of the treaty. We are now paying a very heavy price, not only in Gaza, not only in terms of people being killed every day, but also in terms of actions on the ground in the West Bank as well, where at least they cannot claim that, that there is anybody who's trying to over take anybody. We're not denounced violence where we said clearly that we want to achieve our goal through peaceful means. Despite all of this, the Israeli government did not respect the economic part of the Oslo agreement, including, for example, I would like to mention the fact that Israel today withholds $4 billion for my government's money. Money they collect on our behalf because they control the borders, tax revenues, import duties. They are supposed, according to the agreement, to pay it monthly to us for a fee. They do a collection fee for the last eight months they have sent zero money from this, these funds. As a result, the our ability to govern, our ability to provide basic services to our people have been undermined. The banking system is going through a lot of challenges and difficulties because of, again, their lack of respect to the treaty and the businesslike relationship that our banks established with Israeli banks. We do a lot of trade with Israel. We do a lot of business with Israeli companies and banks. Despite of that, as I said, the Israeli side did not respect this aspect of the treaty as well. So while Oslo agreement is not perfect, it was meant to be an interim arrangement for five years, but we still believe that it provides the minimum requirements for a reasonable relationship that we all should respect. Continue to respect until we have a permanent solution, until we have a two state solution.
Thank you. We'll have, I think, tomorrow, President Herzog from Israel here. You mentioned we talked about the Oslo Accords. And, I know from my experience, of course, some of the issues you mentioned, but help us understand, is there any dialogue whatsoever, for example, between Palestinian officials and Israeli officials? What does it if so, what does it actually look like?
There have been very limited, dialogue, especially after October 7th, the Israelis decided to stop all kind of relationship and took several actions, including issues to do with the financial aspects that I mentioned earlier. They have also, among other things, sent back about 200,000 workers who used to work in Israeli companies in the past and provide very important income for their families in the West Bank. They have also stopped these people from going to work. And, basically made an escalation of activities in terms of settlement, settler terrorism and violence. They have spread, many checkpoints, throughout the West Bank. According to the UN estimates, the number is about perhaps about 1000 checkpoints within the West Bank to control movement within the West Bank, making doing business extremely difficult. So they are doing, equally challenging and dangerous to that. They're doing also in Gaza. In Gaza, we have seen the planes. We have seen the military actions on the ground in the West Bank. They're doing it in a different way. No dialogue. Stop stopping our money, stopping our workers leaving, basically giving free hand for the settlers. They invaded our refugee camps in the West Bank, especially in Jenin. And and Tulkarem displaced our people from from their homes, destroyed many homes. According to the United Nations, more than 40,000 people in these three refugee camps in Gaza, in Jenin, the West Bank, have been displaced now for almost a year without being back to their homes, their kids, without schools. We have to find temporary shelter for them in the West Bank. But the West Bank also has been going through a lot of difficulties. So, the people the world has probably seen a lot of images coming out of Gaza, but much less scenes from the West Bank. But believe me, America, and you know the place very well. It's very sad to see the West Bank, got to the point where people are barely making it. So we again, hope that the international effort on Gaza is very important and badly needed. But we also need equal attention to what's happening in the West Bank.
Thank you. You mentioned earlier, some of the reforms that you're making. And then if, through previous dialogues that are public, for example, with some of the Israeli officials, they would say that, they would point to the need for reforms or others. Help us understand what your priorities are on the reform agenda and particularly on the economic front. But of course, there is also the security dimension. So we've heard that, that of course, efforts should be made, some would say on the security dimension in terms of reform.
Sure. Look, I mean, in terms of reform, you know, we believe that proper institutions will functioning institution, transparent institutions is the best thing you can have for any country. And in our case, it's even more important because the challenge, the kind of challenges we have, we cannot deal with it. We cannot continue to sustain our efforts without proper institutions. So we take the issue of reforms at heart. We believe it's the right thing to do. We need to continue to work on it. And from day one, when I assumed office, we formed a special ministerial committee to develop a detailed program for reforms, and we consulted with our partners in the EU actually also with the previous US administration. When we started this at the time of the Biden administration, we also with the world Bank and of course with the EU. So we have developed since then a very detailed reform program. We developed a detailed metrics under four major pillars to do with financial management and sustainability as a first pillar. Second, institutions reform, consolidation, transparency, anti-corruption, etc.. And third, law and order, justice system, etc. and fourth, basic services and the need to modernize the provision of services to the people, make it more transparent, make it easier, less costly, etc.. So a very comprehensive program under these four pillars, we have identified a matrix of 60 different items. And we have put a timetable for this. And we are producing by annual reports on the progress we made two weeks ago. We have produced the report covering the period the last second half of 25, and we shared this with our partners, especially with the EU and the world Bank. And I'm pleased to tell you that more than half of the reform items, more than half have been completed 100%. And we are actually ahead of schedule in terms of implementing this reform agenda. I'm pleased to tell you that all international partners recognize this progress we're making on the reforms, and we hope that this reform will be empowered and supported, because, let's face it, we can you cannot do reform under these conditions. Normally, we are really doing extra effort to show people that we're serious about this, and we also want to take away any excuses from anyone who wants to say, you will not get your national independence until you reform this or that. So we want to take away all these excuses, but we also want to strengthen our institutions. So I want to tell you that reforms are important. Reforms are good for us. We will. We are committed to continue to implement our reform agenda, but we also expect Israel to do its part, because without a proper enabling, let's put it this way, these efforts will go nowhere. It's hard to reform when you, your employees, do not get paid because the Israeli withholding the money. You cannot reform when people cannot move to go to their work, because there's 1000 checkpoints spread around the West Bank, you cannot do reform when the basically all the the banking system is being subjected to very systemic effort to, to make it collapse. This is a banking system that we build it the hard way under the supervision of international organizations. The Palestinian monetary authorities have very good institutions regulating the banking system. The IMF visit and check on on what we have. We have an anti-money laundering law that we're very proud of. We work very closely with the US Treasury. We work very closely with the UK Treasury. We are open to anyone who wants to look at our systems and make sure that we are implementing the international best practice when it comes to transparency and anti-corruption and the banking system. So we will continue with reforms, but we also want the international community to help us with Israel doing their part.
Thank you. And I would like to I know we are almost out of time, but just to finish with the economy, because you are, you are not only the Prime Minister, but also, someone who's really been a thought leader and you've been playing such a pivotal role in the Palestinian economy over the years. Is this the biggest crisis, economic crisis? If I take, for example, the West Bank economy only. Is it the biggest economic crisis we've seen in a while?
It is. It is by far, during the last two years since the war in Gaza, the economy, according to the world Bank statistics, the economy has been have contracted by 30%. So GDP has contracted by 30%. It's never before, second unemployment was about 15% in the West Bank before the war. In the West Bank, it is about 34% today. Gaza, 85% unemployment. So the average Palestinian unemployment rate now is 51%. Obviously, the budget deficit has increased because the fact the Israelis withholding our money, our private sector, which I would like to salute and convey every possible appreciation and gratitude for their resilience and their hard work and commitment to their country, have also been a strong partner in all of this, but also continue to play a role. But they also have been affected by all of this. So every aspect of our lives have been affected by this. But I want to assure you and everybody else that our people is resilient and our people will get out of this strong. We will. It's painful to go through all of this. It's been extremely difficult. But the good news is that, as I said, our people is very resilient, very determined, and thank God we still have good friends around the world that believe in international law, believe in fairness, believe in justice, believe in dignity. And we were sure we will get there. So, so I will want to end, if I may, also to say, a big thank you to all our partners, but most importantly for our people, especially for our people in Gaza.
Mr. Prime Minister, thank you so much for sharing, your perspectives here at such a pivotal time. And I really hope that the current efforts can really, bring us to peace as rapidly as possible. Thank you so much.
Thank you.