Egypt expected to lead global stabilisation force in Gaza, say diplomats | Gaza
Diplomats said that a proposal by the European and US-backed UN Security Council to give the planned international stabilization force strong powers to control security in Gaza is being prepared, and there is a strong expectation that Egypt will lead it.
The United States is pushing for this force to have a UN mandate without being a full-fledged UN peacekeeping force and would operate with the same kind of authority given to international troops operating in Haiti to fight armed gangs.
Türkiye, Indonesia and Azerbaijan are also billed as main troop contributors, alongside Egypt. Egypt is being consulted on whether the force will be a fully UN-led operation.
European or British troops are not expected to be involved, but Britain has sent advisers to a small US-run cell inside Israel that is trying to implement the second phase of a 20-point plan developed by US president Donald Trump.
Britain emphasizes that the ultimate goal is a Palestinian state, which should be seen as a single entity, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Britain is already training a Palestinian police force, but under the proposal the international force would be given leadership responsibility.
If the force proves effective, Israel will retreat further. But Israel insists it will retain a large Israeli-controlled buffer zone to protect itself from new Hamas attacks.
British diplomats admit that the issue of decommissioning Hamas weapons will be the most difficult and that this has contributed to ideas from the process in Northern Ireland, where IRA and Protestant-controlled weapons have been decommissioned through an independent verification body.
It is likely that Hamas will only decommission weapons to a Palestinian-led organization to ensure connotations of surrender are minimized, although third parties could be used to verify this on Israel’s behalf. It is very likely that the process will begin with Hamas’s heavy weapons and missile launchers, and, more worryingly, with a postponement of the issue of personal weapons owned by Hamas brigades.
Britain appears fully behind former British prime minister Tony Blair’s inclusion in the board, called the peace board in Trump’s plan, aimed at overseeing the work of a 15-person committee of Palestinian technocrats.
Blair, accused of destabilizing the Middle East by supporting the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, received effective support from the current Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shiite al-Sudani.
Speaking to CNBC, the Iraqi leader said: “Tony Blair is an acceptable person and a friend to the Iraqis, and he contributed to the decision to go to war with President Bush at the time and overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“He is a very good friend of the Iraqis and he visits us frequently, and I also have meetings with him. We definitely wish him success in this mission and we will support him.”
Blair’s place on the board that Trump will chair is expected to be finalized in the second week of November, when Egypt hosts a major Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo that seeks to bring together a pool of international donors and private sector finance. The UK believes the size of the required funding, at more than $67bn (£50bn), is so large that private funding will need to be used alongside Gulf donors.
Officials acknowledge that the exact relationship between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the peace board needs to be clarified.
Next Wednesday the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague is expected to rule against Israel for ending all cooperation with UN aid agencies, including the main Palestinian agency, Unrwa.
The request for an advisory opinion by the ICJ, originally brought by Norway and supported by a UN Security Council resolution, will give the ICJ judges the opportunity to explain once again that Israel, as an occupying power, had a legal duty to provide assistance to the people of Gaza and has completely failed to fulfill this duty.
Palestinian Authority foreign minister Varsen Aghabekyan said that the Palestinian Authority has learned from its mistakes and is now a state in the making. Speaking at a conference in Naples organized by the Italian think tank IPSI, he said one of the most important changes the PA had made concerned the school curriculum.
But he said: “If we develop the curriculum to the best standards in the world, and the children to whom the curriculum is taught continue to live under terrible occupation, will that give them a narrative of peace? No. What will bring them a narrative of peace, and internalize it, is if children do not experience checkpoints, humiliation, trees being uprooted, farms being burned, and fathers being killed every day.”
