Gaza Faces Risk Of Permanent Partition As Trump’s So-Called Peace Plan Falters

MANAMA, Nov 11 (Reuters) – With U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to move beyond disrupting his plan to end the war beyond a cease-fire, the possibility of a de facto division of Gaza between an Israeli-controlled zone and one run by Hamas is increasingly likely, multiple sources say.

Six European officials with direct knowledge of efforts to implement the next phase of the plan told Reuters that the plan had effectively been halted and that reconstruction now appeared likely to be limited to Israeli-controlled territory.

They warned this could lead to years of separation.

According to the first phase of the plan, which came into effect on October 10, the Israeli army now controls 53% of Mediterranean territory, including most of the agricultural land, Rafah in the south, parts of Gaza City and other urban areas.

Almost the entire population of Gaza’s 2 million people is holed up in tent camps and the ruins of ruined cities in the rest of Gaza under Hamas control.

Drone footage taken by Reuters in November shows the horrific destruction in the northeast of Gaza City following Israel’s final pre-truce offensive after months of bombardment. The region is now divided between Israeli and Hamas control.

The next phase of the plan envisages Israel’s further withdrawal from the so-called yellow line adopted under Trump’s plan, the establishment of a transitional authority to govern Gaza, the deployment of a multinational security force to take over from the Israeli army, the disarmament of Hamas and the beginning of reconstruction.

However, the plan does not provide any timeline or mechanism for implementation. Meanwhile, Hamas refuses to disarm, Israel denies any intervention by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, and uncertainty about the multinational force remains.

“We are still working on the idea,” Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said at a security conference in Manama this month. “Everybody wants this conflict to end, we all want the end game to be the same. The question is, how do we make it work?”

Without major U.S. pressure to break the impasse, the yellow line is likely to become the de facto border dividing Gaza indefinitely, according to 18 sources, including six European officials and a former U.S. official familiar with the talks.

The United States has drafted a UN Security Council resolution that would give the multinational force and interim governing body a two-year mandate. But ten diplomats said governments were hesitant to send troops.

European and Arab nations in particular are unlikely to join if responsibilities go beyond peacekeeping and mean direct conflict with Hamas or other Palestinian groups, they said.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner said last month that reconstruction funds could quickly begin flowing into the Israeli-controlled territory even before moving on to the next phase of the plan, with the idea of ​​creating model zones where some Gazans could live.

Michael Wahid Hanna, US program director at the think tank International Crisis Group, said such US proposals suggested the fragmented reality on the ground risked becoming “locked into something much longer-term”.

A State Department spokesman said “tremendous progress” had been made in advancing Trump’s plan but there was more work to be done, without responding to questions about whether the reconstruction would be limited to Israeli-controlled territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has no intention of re-occupying or ruling Gaza, despite calls from far-right ministers in his cabinet to revive the settlements destroyed in 2005.

The military has also resisted such demands for permanent takeover of the area or direct control of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu has instead vowed to create a buffer zone along the border in Gaza to prevent a repeat of the Hamas offensive that sparked the war in October 2023.

Israeli forces have placed large blocks of yellow cement to mark the withdrawal line and are building infrastructure on the side of Gaza that their troops control. In Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, the army took journalists last week to a police station that has been fortified since the ceasefire.

Satellite images show soil and building rubble have been bulldozed into steep mounds, creating a sheltered vantage point for soldiers. Fresh asphalt was poured.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani stated that the soldiers were there to prevent militants from passing into Israeli-controlled territory, and said that if Hamas fulfills the conditions, including disarmament, and the international security force steps in, Israel will move further away from the line.

“We are ready to move forward as soon as Hamas fulfills its part of the agreement,” Shoshani said. An Israeli government official responding to written questions for this article said Israel remained committed to the agreement and accused Hamas of stalling.

As part of the first phase of the plan, Hamas released the last 20 hostages held in Gaza and the remains of the 24 dead hostages. The remains of the other 4 hostages are still in Gaza.

Nearby, in Palestinian parts of the city, Hamas has reasserted itself by killing rivals in recent weeks. Police provided security guards and civilian workers who guarded food stalls and cleared roads in rough terrain using obsolete excavators, Reuters video shows.

Speaking at the Manama conference, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called for speed, saying, “In terms of security, we really need to fill the gap in the Gaza Strip” and warned that the resurgence of Hamas could trigger renewed Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Hazem Kasim, Hamas’ spokesman in Gaza, said the group was ready to hand over power to a Palestinian technocratic structure so that reconstruction could begin.

“Every part of Gaza equally deserves reconstruction,” he said.

One of the ideas discussed, according to two European officials and a Western diplomat, was whether Hamas could decommission the weapons under international control rather than handing them over to Israel or another foreign power.

European and Arab states want the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and police to return to Gaza, along with the multinational force that will take over from Hamas. Thousands of its officers trained in Egypt and Jordan are ready for duty, but Israel opposes any intervention by the Palestinian Authority.

Six European officials said they did not see Trump’s plan going beyond a ceasefire unless there was a major change in Hamas or Israel’s positions or the United States pressured Israel to accept a Palestinian Authority role and path to statehood.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said at the Manama conference that “Gaza should not be stuck in a no man’s land between peace and war.”

Gaza City resident Salah Abu Amr, 62, said people might consider moving there if there is no progress on disarmament of Hamas and redevelopment starts along the yellow line. But he said it was difficult to consider the realities of a divided Gaza.

“Will we all be able to pass to that region? Otherwise, Israel will veto the entry of some of us,” he said. “Will they also divide families into good people and bad people?” It remains unclear who will finance the reconstruction of parts of Gaza under Israeli occupation, without the intervention of the Palestinian Authority and at a time when Israel is reluctant to take steps towards the statehood it resists. The cost of reconstruction is estimated at $70 billion.

The de facto territorial division of Gaza would further cripple Palestinian aspirations for an independent nation, including the West Bank, and worsen the humanitarian disaster for a people who lack adequate shelter and are almost entirely dependent on aid for subsistence.

Jordanian Safadi said, “We cannot allow Gaza to be torn apart.” “Gaza is one and Gaza is part of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin also rejected the territorial division of Gaza and said the Palestinian Authority was ready to assume “full national responsibility”.

“There can be no real reconstruction or lasting stability without full Palestinian sovereignty over the region,” he said in response to questions from Reuters.