Ramallah stalemating Israeli efforts to form post-war Gaza administration
A set of Palestinian Authority preconditions for running post-war Gaza is deadlocking Israeli efforts to recruit the involvement of moderate Arab states.
Israeli forces in recent days at the Palestinian side of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Credit TPS-IL
While Israel wants both the Palestinian Authority and moderate Arab states involved in running the Strip, those Arab states are conditioning any role on the resumption of peace talks. The Palestinian Authority, in consultation with the Arab League, has made a list of preconditions for administering post-war Gaza — a roadmap that Ramallah believes will lead to statehood, The Press Service of Israel has learned.
“The Israeli security system believes that multinational forces and Arab forces should be combined at various points in the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to provide an alternative to Hamas the day after the war,” a senior figure in the Defence Ministry told TPS-IL.
He said that no Arab state has shown any willingness for a role in Gaza, calling it a “very significant political challenge.” The official did not address the question of preconditions expressed by Arab or Palestinian leaders.
But a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told TPS-IL that the PA has three preconditions.
The first condition is a complete Israeli withdrawal from all areas of the Gaza Strip. This demand includes the army withdrawing from Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and from the Philadelphi corridor. The Philadelphi Corridor is a buffer zone running the length of the 14-kilometre Egypt-Gaza border created to prevent weapons smuggling after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2006. But Hamas violently seized control of Gaza the following year.
Ramallah’s second precondition is that it will be exclusively responsible for Gaza’s administration, including control of the border crossings.
“Our third condition is the beginning of a comprehensive political process under the auspices of the UN and the international community to reach a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian problem, including east Jerusalem,” the Palestinian source told TPS-IL.
However, he added that these preconditions have not been officially communicated to Israel, but are gaining political traction with officials in the US and Europe.
“You can choose between military rule and a political solution for Gaza,” he said. “An Arab solution is not on the agenda as long as the Palestinian Authority is not part of it.”
He added that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia back the Palestinian road map. “The messages that came from Saudi Arabia make it clear that there will be no Saudi involvement the day after the war in the Gaza Strip, except to support the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Strip and to start a comprehensive political process.”
Efforts to normalize Israeli-Saudi relations remain knotted by the war. Saudi leaders say the war must end before normalization talks can continue. But Israel wants clarity on what a Saudi role in post-war Gaza would look like before the conflict ends. More than half of Israelis polled oppose a peace agreement tying the creation of a Palestinian state to normalized relations with Saudi Arabia according to a survey released in February.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 116 remaining hostages, more than 30 are believed dead.
