Israeli plan for Arab-US int’l force to secure Gaza nixed by Palestinian groups

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had raised the possibility in his meetings in Washington last week.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Palestinian terror groups in Syria as well as Arab countries mediating talks between Israel and Hamas have rejected an Israeli proposal to have a temporary multinational Arab force secure Gaza and oversee humanitarian aid supplies, Arab media reported Saturday.

According to Al-Mayadeen, a Hezbollah mouthpiece in Lebanon, “Palestinian factions” in Syria said that outsiders would not be welcome in the coastal enclave, whether during or after the war.

“Arab countries, together with the U.S., are trying to rescue the IDF from the situation it has found itself in Gaza,” the report said they stated. “The Palestinian people are capable of choosing their leaders and institutions that will manage the Strip.”

In his meetings in Washington last week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had raised the possibility of international forces, including Arab ones, coming to Gaza to enforce calm on the “day after” the war.

The U.S. role would be to lend political and funding support, but no “boots on the ground,” said a senior Israeli official.

The suggestion was for such a force to remain in Gaza anywhere from six to 18 months.

In the immediate term, their guarding of humanitarian aid would ensure that it actually gets to the civilian Gazan population, rather than the current situation whereby Hamas controls its distribution, demanding payment for what they receive for free, or stealing it for themselves, thereby prolonging the war.

In the longer term, said the official, “such a move will build a governing body in the area that is not Hamas.”

Sources cited by the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel said that the countries have told both Israel and the U.S. that they reject the guarding role envisioned for them, insisting on international supervision of the aid, including that of the UN agency dedicated to Palestinians, UNRWA.

This, despite Israel’s refusal to deal with the agency any longer due so many of its staff being active supporters of Hamas, with dozens even participating in the October 7 massacre of 1,200 and abduction of 253 into Gaza that sparked the current war.

Meanwhile, Channel 11 reported Saturday that in a meeting ten days ago in Cairo with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ministers from Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar themselves proposed stationing their troops in the Palestinian Authority in both Judea and Samaria and Gaza.

This, however, would take place only within the framework of working “to launch a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and to implement the two-state solution,” an Arab diplomatic source told the news channel.

Sending Arab forces just to deal with the humanitarian aid issue and help the IDF achieve its war goals in Gaza would not interest them, he said.

Arab CountriesGaza humanitarian aidhamas-Israel warYoav Gallant