Israeli military equipment is moving into Gaza during the ongoing ground offensive against Hamas. Photo: ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCE/REUTERS
In a part of the world that has long challenged peacekeepers, these questions are causing deep wrinkles in diplomats' brows. If Israel clears the Gaza Strip of Hamas, what kind of government will replace it? Will the 2.5 million Gazans who live there accept him, and who will be their strength if Hamas strikes back?
The preferred candidate for the position by the United States and the United Nations is the Palestinian Authority, or PA, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Last week, António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said that a “hopefully renewed” PA was the “best case scenario.”
First, however, there is a small issue that the citizens of Gaza will have to bear. in the mind. Although some Gazans are now rebelling against Hamas due to the chaos following the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, few want the PA to simply take control.
“The PA is not popular in the Gaza Strip right now. “,” one man told The Telegraph last week. “If they rule Gaza, we will definitely have a civil war.”
“This is our Gaza, and it is its people who should choose their rulers,” another man added. “Not Israel, not the US, not the West.”
Fighting rages in the Gaza Strip as seen from the southern border with Israel Photo: FADEL SENNA/AFP
That the PA is the brightest hope speaks volumes about the challenges ahead.
The group was long seen as ineffective and corrupt, so Gazans voted the religious fanatics Hamas into power for the first time in elections in 2006.< /p>
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is 86 years old and has heart problems that make him unlikely to take on the complex task of governing. The PA is also aware of the disastrous consequences of “riding into Gaza on an Israeli military tank,” as its Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh bluntly stated last week. He insists the PA will only participate if progress is made on the much more thorny issue of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, is also speaking against PA involvement, pointing out that ministers such as Mr Shtayya have refused to condemn Hamas attacks last month.
Even if the PA does take political control of the Gaza Strip, there is a separate issue of security control. PA security forces have long struggled to impose their laws even in the West Bank, where they are theoretically in control. Thus, one option is for a coalition of Arab countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to provide troops to Gaza.
Formidable insurgency
However, such a force could prove as unwanted as British and American soldiers were in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamas will portray any new Gaza overlords as collaborators with Israel and could create a formidable insurgency. “Arab forces could find themselves at the center of an uprising,” says Colonel Tim Collins, a veteran of the British campaign in Iraq.
If the Gaza Strip continues to be used as a launching pad for Hamas terrorist attacks, Israel may not stand by, adds Shalom Ben Hanan, a former Israeli intelligence officer and fellow at Israel's International Counter-Terrorism Institute.
“There will likely be an uprising and it will be difficult for us to keep our own army out of the area if there are security problems,” he said. “Israel will never allow a repeat of terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, let alone a repeat of the massacres that occurred last month.”
Not everyone fears Gaza will become Helmand on the Mediterranean. Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel's National Security Council, says that while the current Israeli military operation will not “get rid of all Kalashnikovs,” any insurgency must be manageable. “It won't be all rice and flowers, but since the US is pushing all the players, I think the situation can be brought under control.”
However, it will not be simply a matter of physical strength. Mr. Ben Hanan notes that in addition to some 30,000 fighters, Hamas has about 70,000 officials and activists whose ideology will be challenged after the war, “like the Nazis in Germany.”
Part of this may include limiting the UN's role in the Gaza Strip, where the Israelis say it has failed to act as a neutral presence. Of particular concern to Israel is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Israeli human rights groups have long accused it of allowing anti-Semitic material to be taught in its schools and complain that some of its 30,000 employees support Hamas. The agency disputes these claims.
Unsuitable partner
“Whatever the arrangements for Gaza after Hamas, Israel will argue that the UN has not proven itself to be a suitable partner,” one Israeli official said.
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However, like every other aspect of Gaza's future, this remains little more than wishful thinking for now. And as past attempts at peace have proven too often, neither side ever gets exactly what it wants. According to Guterres, an agreement that leaves neither side completely happy and carries a high risk of failure may be the “best-case scenario” everyone can hope for.
On one issue, however: there is rare consensus. Nobody wants Israel to control the Gaza Strip again. Not Israel's Arab neighbors, not the international community as a whole, not Israel itself, which withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Meanwhile, Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel should retain overall control of security after the war “with the ability to go in whenever we want to kill terrorists.”
“Hamas will not be. There will be no civil authority that teaches its children to hate Israel, kill Israelis, and destroy the state of Israel. There cannot be a government that pays the families of murderers. There must be something else,” he said.
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