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Details of Cameron’s Plan to ‘Exit the Bottleneck’ in Gaza

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. (Reuters)
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. (Reuters)
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Details of Cameron’s Plan to ‘Exit the Bottleneck’ in Gaza

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. (Reuters)
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. (Reuters)

David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary, has signaled that the UK is exploring the possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state and has encouraged allies to do the same at the UN.

Speaking to the Conservative Middle East Council in London, Cameron stressed the importance of offering Palestinians a political perspective to promote peace in the Middle East.

He suggested that a new Palestinian Authority led by technocrats should govern Gaza.

Cameron, currently on his fourth Middle East tour since taking office in November, mentioned that a potential pathway is emerging, and progress toward a political solution could mean lasting peace.

In the wake of Cameron’s statements and a perceived shift in London’s foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, diplomatic sources revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat details of the British plan to resolve the issue.

Palestinian state

The plan includes steps such as initiating a ceasefire in Gaza and ultimately establishing a Palestinian state.

Informed sources familiar with ongoing talks between Britain and international and regional parties about post-war arrangements in Gaza told Asharq Al-Awsat that Cameron has recently taken diplomatic steps and engaged in active communication with various concerned parties.

His proposals involve measures like halting fighting in Gaza, increasing humanitarian aid, working on the release of hostages and the exchange of prisoners.

The plan also includes political arrangements aiming for significant changes on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides.

The goal is to pave the way for Gaza’s reconstruction and establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with international recognition, including from the UN.

Responding to questions from Asharq Al-Awsat, the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office reiterated Cameron’s stance.

It emphasized the importance of giving Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza a credible political path leading to a Palestinian state and a new future—a step that cannot be reversed.

The Office stated that the UK and its allies can assist by confirming commitment to a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, stressing the significance of recognition, including at the UN.

Speaking at a reception for Arab ambassadors at the House of Commons on Monday, Cameron said: “If the last 30 years tells us anything, it is a story of failure.”

“Ultimately it is a story of failure for Israel because yes, they had a growing economy, yes they had rising living standards, yes they invested in defense and security and walls and the rest of it, but they couldn't provide what a state most wants, what every family wants, which is security. And so the last 30 years has been a failure,” continued Cameron.

“And it is only by recognizing that failure and recognizing that true peace and progress will come when the benefits of peace and progress are greater than the benefits of returning to fighting,” he added.

New western orientation

Recent developments, both in public statements and private discussions, indicate a fresh direction in London’s decision-making circles.

The aftermath of the recent Gaza war is viewed as a critical opportunity to actively pursue a lasting solution to the conflict, putting an end to the long-standing cycle of violence.

Sources highlight a noticeable change in the UK’s foreign policy regarding the Gaza war and future plans. There is now clear talk about the need to work towards “lasting political solutions,” centered on establishing a recognized Palestinian state.

This represents a significant departure from past approaches that mainly relied on negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis for a two-state solution.

The shift reflects a change in Western perspectives on finding real resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

No role for Hamas

Regarding the role of the Hamas movement and its potential involvement in future political arrangements, sources stressed the UK’s unwavering position.

There is a strong rejection of any role for Hamas in governing Gaza or participating in any Palestinian government in the upcoming phase.

Transitional arrangements ultimately aim to lead to general elections resulting in the formation of a new Palestinian leadership.

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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007.

“We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,” the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the UN World Food Program and UN refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees, The Associated Press said.

Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries.

A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, “UN agencies have supported my children’s education — we get food and water and even medicine,” as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics.

This year, those cash transfers — and many other UN aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives.

As the UN marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense.

Some UN agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some UN agencies.

Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the UN and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago.

“It’s the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the UN in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,” said Jan Egeland, a former UN humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. “And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.”

‘Brutal’ cuts to humanitarian aid programs UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of UN agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid.

Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don’t — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water.

The UN says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi group, who have detained dozens of UN and other aid workers.

Proponents say UN aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles.

Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often UN-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight.

In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the UN’s refugee and migration agencies, the US has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in US foreign assistance have hit hard. Each UN agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending.

“It's too brutal what has happened,” said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. “However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.”

With the UN Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of UN activity. That's dimming now.

Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work

Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work.

UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948.

Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off UN aid in Gaza to profit from it, while UN officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy.

“UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,” said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.

UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife’s heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless.

Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: “If it wasn’t for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.”

Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks.

“This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,” said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. “It’s a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that’s an equation that doesn’t come together easily.”

Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff.

The aid landscape is shifting

One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing.

The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the US Agency for International Development.

Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites.

The future of UN aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries.

“We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the UN to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program.