Draft:Hiba Qasas
Palestinian-Swiss peacebuilder (born 1980)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hiba Qasas (born 1980) is a Palestinian-Swiss peacebuilder and the Founding Executive Director of the Principles for Peace Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Born in Nablus in the West Bank, she spent nearly two decades at the United Nations before founding Principles for Peace (P4P) in 2023. She is best known internationally for convening the Uniting for a Shared Future (USF) coalition, which brings together more than 550 Israeli and Palestinian leaders across politics, business, security, and civil society, and for her role in shaping international debate on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. In late 2025 and early 2026, she attracted widespread media attention following reports that closed-door discussions she organised in Geneva had informed elements of the Trump administration's Gaza peace plan, and she twice briefed the UN Security Council on peacebuilding.[1][2]
 | Review waiting, please be patient.
This may take 2 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 4,402 pending submissions waiting for review.
Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
Reviewer tools
|
Hiba Qasas | |
|---|---|
 Hiba Qasas, Geneva, 2025 | |
| Born | |
| Alma mater | University of Pavia |
| Occupations | Peacebuilder; Executive Director |
| Employer | Principles for Peace Foundation |
| Known for | Founding Principles for Peace; convening Uniting for a Shared Future |
Early life and education
Childhood in Nablus
Hiba Qasas was born in 1980 in Nablus, in the West Bank. She grew up in a middle-class family of six siblings during a period of intense conflict. Her childhood was shaped by the First Intifada (1987–1993), which brought school closures, curfews, and severe restrictions on movement. In a 2025 interview with the Swiss newspaper 24 Heures, she recalled two contrasting childhood images: "the lights in the city at the end of Ramadan" and "the path to school littered with rubber bullets and stones."[1] The Oslo Accords of 1993 briefly offered hope, but the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 deepened instability in the region.[1]
In 2000, at age 19, her boyfriend was killed by Israeli forces during a demonstration in Nablus, and her family home was subsequently destroyed by shelling. She later described feeling "sadness, anger, and a desire for vengeance" at the time, but received a scholarship to study in Italy, an opportunity she has credited with reshaping her trajectory.[1]
She earned a Master's degree in International Cooperation for Development from the University of Pavia in Italy in 2001. She later became a naturalised Swiss citizen and settled in Geneva.[1][3]
Career
Early career and NGO work
After completing her studies, Hiba Qasas worked with Palestinian non-governmental organisations on microfinance and rural development in the West Bank and Jerusalem, before joining the United Nations.[3]
United Nations (2002–2020)
Hiba Qasas spent approximately 18 years at the United Nations in a range of senior roles.[3][4] At the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), she managed programmes in poverty reduction, education, crisis prevention, and peacebuilding in Palestine, and later coordinated crisis prevention and recovery programmes with UNDP's Crisis Bureau, covering country offices across the Arab states and the Horn of Africa.[3] In 2011, she became Head of the Middle East and North Africa Section at UN Women headquarters in New York City, where she worked on the Syrian crisis and convened Syrian women from diverse backgrounds to develop a shared peace agenda.[5] From 2015 she served as UN Women Country Representative in Iraq, and later as Chief of the Crisis Prevention, Preparedness and Response Office of UN Women in Geneva.[3]
Principles for Peace Foundation
In 2020, Hiba Qasas became Head of the Secretariat of the Principles for Peace Initiative at Interpeace, a Geneva-based peacebuilding organisation.[6] She subsequently founded the independent Principles for Peace Foundation in Geneva in 2023, serving as its Founding Executive Director.[7]
Development of the Principles for Peace
Between 2020 and 2022, Principles for Peace led a global participatory process to develop new principles for achieving lasting peace, under the auspices of the International Commission on Inclusive Peace. The process included more than 150 consultations across 61 countries, engagement with thousands of stakeholders from grassroots to state level, and analysis of over 700 research documents.[8]
The resulting eight Principles for Peace were articulated in the Peacemakers' Covenant, launched in early 2023. They received recognition from the United Nations Security Council during a High-Level Open Debate in May 2023 as an important frame of reference for peacebuilding.[9]
Country programmes
Under Hiba Qasas's leadership, Principles for Peace has applied its framework in several active conflict and post-conflict settings.
In July 2023, she led the Southeast Asia regional launch of the Principles in Davao City in the southern Philippines, presenting them to stakeholders in the Bangsamoro peace process, including Mohagher Iqbal, Chair of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Peace Implementing Panel. The Principles were presented as an accountability and monitoring tool for the implementation of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. Gus Miclat, executive director of the Mindanao-based Initiatives for International Dialogue, described the Principles as offering "a new metric that will determine and diagnose what has been happening because all peace processes don't end with the peace agreement."[10]
In parallel, Principles for Peace developed a partnership with the government of Somalia. In September 2023, Hiba Qasas co-convened a high-level event at the United Nations General Assembly alongside Germany and Somalia, at which US Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya delivered remarks on new partnerships for conflict prevention.[11] Somalia's National Reconciliation Framework, launched by Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre in Mogadishu in April 2024 and facilitated with support from UNDP, explicitly incorporated the Principles for Peace as a guiding framework, making Somalia the first country to embed them in national policy.[12] Principles for Peace subsequently signed a formal partnership agreement with Somalia's Ministry of Interior, Reconciliation, and Federal Affairs to support implementation of the framework.[13]
Peace Navigator
In December 2025, Principles for Peace launched the Peace Navigator, an AI-powered analytical platform developed in partnership with the Institute for Economics and Peace, drawing on data spanning 56 fragile and conflict-affected countries to help policymakers and mediators anticipate challenges and assess strategic options.[14]
Uniting for a Shared Future
In March 2024, following the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, Hiba Qasas convened the inaugural meeting of the Uniting for a Shared Future (USF) coalition.[15] The coalition brings together more than 550 Israeli and Palestinian leaders from politics, security, business, finance, civil society, and media, organised around five core principles: mutual recognition of the right of both peoples to self-determination and statehood; dignity; safety and security; agency and inclusion; and trust through healing.[15][16] The coalition held further convenings in 2024 and 2025. Writing in the Geneva Policy Outlook in January 2025, Hiba Qasas described USF as a people-driven, internationally-supported push for a political settlement, arguing that "peace is a security imperative" in a destabilised Middle East.[16]
Influence on the Trump Gaza peace plan
In October 2025, several Swiss newspapers — including 24 Heures, Blick, Tribune de Genève, and Tages-Anzeiger, as well as the Belgian daily Le Soir — reported that elements of the Trump administration's Gaza peace plan had been discussed previously in closed-door conferences in Geneva that Hiba Qasas had organised.[1][2][17][18]
The Tages-Anzeiger profile was headlined "Diese Schweizerin arbeitete am Nahost-Friedensplan – obwohl niemand daran glaubte" ("This Swiss woman worked on the Middle East peace plan — even though nobody believed in it").[18] The same article was also published as "Israel Palästina: Hiba Qasas wirkte auf Trumps Friedensplan ein" in Der Bund on 21 October 2025, and as "La Suissesse qui a inspiré dans l'ombre le plan de paix de Trump" in Tribune de Genève.[18] According to these reports, she had held multiple meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and with members of the team of Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, in Washington.[1]
UN Security Council appearances
On 12 January 2026, Hiba Qasas addressed the UN Security Council Arria-formula meeting "Advancing New Paradigms for Peacebuilding," convened by Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman of Somalia as President of the Security Council, with remarks also from Ambassador Ricklef Johannes Beutin of Germany, Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission. She argued that the central challenge in global peacebuilding had shifted from reaching ceasefires to ensuring their implementation and durability, and presented the Peace Navigator and the USF coalition as practical instruments to support that goal. Bert Koenders, Chair of the P4P Advisory Group and former Dutch Foreign Minister, also spoke at the meeting.[19]
On 18 February 2026, she briefed the UN Security Council again at a formal open debate on the situation in the Middle East, convened under the UK presidency by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. She appeared alongside Nadav Tamir (former Israeli diplomat and Executive Director of J Street Israel), speaking jointly on behalf of Principles for Peace and the Uniting for a Shared Future coalition. The session was also attended by the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain, and by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar.[20][21][22][23] The Jerusalem Post reported that both Hiba Qasas and Tamir delivered briefings at the start of the meeting alongside the UN Under-Secretary-General.[20]
Knesset appearance
In July 2025, Hiba Qasas participated in the inaugural session of the Knesset Caucus for the Advancement of a Regional Security Agreement in Jerusalem, attending in her capacity as executive director of the USF coalition. During the session she referenced a letter from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas outlining commitments on reform and disarmament in Gaza. Ynet reported on the session, which also featured Syrian civil society figures and Israeli movement leaders.[24]
Written and analytical work
Hiba Qasas has co-authored a series of analytical pieces on Gaza stabilisation with former Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders and retired Dutch Lieutenant General CJ Matthijssen. These include an op-ed in Haaretz in November 2025 on the risks of forcibly disarming Hamas,[25] a piece in the Jerusalem Post on the challenges facing the Gaza ceasefire,[26] an article in the International Peace Institute's Global Observatory on getting stabilisation right in Gaza (November 2025),[27] and a further Global Observatory analysis on the limitations of the Trump administration's Board of Peace mechanism (February 2026).[28]
In July 2025, she published a solo op-ed in Haaretz calling for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations to be pursued alongside ceasefire talks.[29]
In January 2025, she published an essay in the Geneva Policy Outlook arguing that peace had become a security imperative in a deteriorating Middle East.[16]
Media profile
Television and broadcast
Hiba Qasas appeared on CNN's Amanpour programme on 14 August 2025, in a segment on Israeli-Palestinian bridge-building alongside retired Israeli Air Force General Nimrod Sheffer.[30] She has appeared on France 24 to discuss France's recognition of Palestine,[31] and on RTS in an interview on the Gaza peace plan.[32]
On 26 February 2026, she appeared on Fox News Radio's All-Star Panel alongside Nadav Tamir to discuss common ground between Israelis and Palestinians.[33]
She appeared in the Swissinfo Inside Geneva podcast in an episode on women in peace processes, in conversation with Sara Hellmüller of the Geneva Graduate Institute. In that discussion she noted that women represented only 10 per cent of members of peace negotiation teams in 2023 and described their exclusion as "systemic."[34] A companion Swissinfo article published in March 2026, "Who's missing in the peace process?", quoted her at length on the same themes.[35] She also appeared in another Swissinfo podcast on peacebuilding in the context of the Ukraine conflict.[36]
Print media profiles
In October 2025, a wave of profiles appeared in Swiss and European media following reports of her role in shaping the Trump Gaza framework, including major pieces in 24 Heures, Tribune de Genève, Blick, Tages-Anzeiger, Der Bund, and Le Soir of Belgium.[1][2][17][18] The Dutch newspaper Trouw interviewed her in 2026 about Trump's Board of Peace initiative and Palestinian agency.[37] The Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour carried an interview in which she argued that Palestinians and Israelis could find common ground on what they wanted for their people.[38]
Views on peacebuilding
Hiba Qasas has argued that the dominant model of international peacemaking is structurally flawed. In a 2022 interview with Geneva Solutions, she said that "most peace agreements tend to fall apart after seven years" and that around 90 per cent of countries that experienced conflict in recent decades went on to experience it again, concluding that "evidently something is not working."[39] She has described the tendency of peace processes to focus on elite power-sharing as producing agreements that lack legitimacy in the eyes of affected populations.[9]
In the Inside Geneva podcast, she stated: "I don't believe in blueprints. I don't believe in toolboxes. I believe that peace is a much broader concept than political peace, and that it needs to be felt and experienced by people."[34]
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict specifically, she has argued that the status quo is unsustainable and has advocated for a people-driven process capable of moving forward even when political leadership on both sides lacks the will to engage.[16] On Trump's ceasefire initiative, she described it as "a positive step in the right direction," while stressing the need for a credible political horizon and genuine Palestinian representation in any governance arrangements.[34]
Academic affiliations
Hiba Qasas is a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney and the European School for Advanced Studies in International Development. She co-leads the IDEAL Society (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Action, Leadership) initiative, supported by Harvard University and the University of Sydney, which focuses on enabling women's leadership.[4]
See also
- Principles for Peace Foundation
- Interpeace
- Bangsamoro peace process
- Israeli–Palestinian peace process