The UAE will use its diplomatic weight to push for tangible improvements in Gaza, Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Mohamed, told the Munich Security Conference.
The priority must be immediate relief for civilians and improving livelihoods, Dr Gargash said, during a panel discussion titled Life Under Destruction: Building Blocks for a New Gaza.
While acknowledging the importance of a long-term political framework, including a two-state solution and avoiding “more irreversible actions in the West Bank”, he stressed that the urgency in Gaza cannot wait for final-status diplomacy.
“I think right now, the main, main thing is to bring real, real improvements to conditions of safety, security, livelihood, and I think that's essential.”
The UAE, Dr Gargash said, had announced it would not join an international security force in Gaza but would step up its involvement in other ways. “I think we've come out and said that we will not join that. But I think there are many, many things that we will do,” he said.
Among those efforts is increased humanitarian assistance and greater diplomatic engagement. “We will do more in terms of humanitarian [aid]. We will do more in terms of facilitation," Dr Gargash said. "We will use and leverage our relations also with Israel more and more in order for us to, sort of, let them see also the other perspective in these things.”
The UAE has already been playing a leading role in delivering aid and diplomacy. Dr Gargash said that over the past two years, the country accounted for roughly 45 per cent of all aid sent to Gaza.
However, he made clear that future funding would depend on stronger oversight mechanisms. “With the money, the more transparent the system is, I think the more comfortable the UAE, as I'm sure many other donors, will be. As soon as we see that sort of transparency and the system of spending for Gaza, the path is clear.”
Beyond humanitarian relief and reconstruction, Dr Gargash described a missing political dimension. “You have to have a political horizon. You cannot just work on humanitarian issues without a clear political horizon,” he said.
Despite the scale of destruction and entrenched divisions, Dr Gargash said, diplomacy requires persistence. “We always have to be hopeful,” he said. “I think that the cornerstone of working as a diplomat is to be hopeful.”
He described the Palestinian cause as central to the region’s broader stability. Addressing it, he noted, would not solve every conflict in the Middle East, “but it's very central and very important to do that”.
