Hamas, too, is said by U.S. officials to have accepted the plan by agreeing in early July to drop its demand for a guarantee that the initial cease-fire would mean a permanent cessation of hostilities. But agreement on the framework doesn’t mean the bargaining is done — so maybe it’s time for a reality check on what issues remain.
Pressure for peace is growing on both sides. Some Hamas commanders have to close the deal, Israeli officials tell me. And for weeks, Israeli defense leaders have been pushing Netanyahu to embrace the pact. But the two leaders may hope to gain more leverage from continued fighting.
The remaining disputes may seem trivial, but some go to the core issue of future governance in Gaza, which remains the fuzziest part of the U.S. mediators’ plan. In dozens of conversations with U.S., Israeli and Arab officials about “the day after,” I still haven’t heard a detailed explanation of who will enforce security in Gaza when the fighting stops.
For starters, there’s the question of whether the Palestinian Authority will play a role. The PA would like to oversee the Gaza side of the southern border, with its own flag flying. Israel has balked at that, but there’s tentative agreement on a compromise that would include Palestinian representation in an obscure group known as “EUBAM,” which stands for European Union Border Assistance Mission in Rafah.
EUBAM was created in 2005 to help the PA monitor the Egypt-Gaza border. It operated just two years — until Hamas kidnapped Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, in June 2006. But EUBAM still has a small staff in Rafah, and it provides a useful shell for a new border-control unit, U.S. and Israeli officials say.
Then there’s the question of Israel’s military presence along the border, in what’s known as the Philadelphi Corridor. The Biden administration’s plan, as codified by the U.N. Security Council, calls for Israel to withdraw its troops from “the populated areas in Gaza,” which Palestinians say includes the strip south of Rafah. But Israel is resisting full withdrawal there, so negotiators are seeking a compromise that delays full evacuation to a later date.
Another clause of the cease-fire framework promises “the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes and neighborhoods in all areas of Gaza,” including in the north. This migration seemed set a week ago, but officials say that Israel now wants to check Palestinians moving north to make sure that Hamas fighters aren’t rebuilding their forces and restocking weapons. Remote technical-surveillance systems may provide a fix here, but, as of Monday, negotiators were still said to be wrangling.
Israelis and Arabs want the U.S. military to have “boots on the ground” during the transition. But putting U.S. troops in Gaza is a nonstarter. A compromise plan is a command-and-control and logistics hub across the border in Egypt. At the same time, Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel will coordinate training of Palestinian security forces from his headquarters in Jerusalem. His title is “U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” which may promise more than the United States can deliver.
What authority will oversee the postwar transition? Here, again, the details are vague. U.S. and Israeli officials envision a Security Council mandate, or perhaps joint sponsorship by the United States and the European Union. A senior Israeli official suggested supervisory roles for Nikolay Mladenov, the United Nations’ former special coordinator for the Middle East, and Tony Blair, former British prime minister, though both men are controversial because of business dealings in the region.
And finally, on the gut issue of security, just who will maintain order in Gaza during the initial six weeks of the cease-fire and then in the indefinite “Phase 2” of the agreement that follows? Hamas is bidding for a role by punishing thieves who have been stealing humanitarian supplies. U.S. and Israeli officials propose a loose alliance of Gaza Palestinians, foreign advisers and paid mercenaries from one of the big U.S. security contractors.
It’s a shaky structure at best. U.S. and Israeli defense officials think the best solution would eventually be a Palestinian Authority security force, trained by Fenzel’s mission and perhaps headed by Majed Faraj, director of the PA’s intelligence service. But one Israeli told me that a covert Hamas presence is almost inevitable — a prospect that frightens leaders of neighboring Arab countries.
Let’s assume that a cease-fire is actually announced in Gaza over the next several weeks, as framed by the Biden administration and endorsed by the United Nations. What comes next? The White House should move urgently with Israel and other key allies to fill in the blank spaces in the transition plan.
The horrific Gaza war is entering an endgame. But without better planning for “the next day,” that may not mean an actual end. As hard as the Biden administration has labored on the cease-fire plan, it has more work to do.
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