 "US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Image Credit: Reuters")
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the country is moving forward to set up a new governance structure for Gaza . The institution will be made up of an international board and a group of Palestinian technocrats and will be followed by the deployment of foreign troops on the Palestinian enclave.
Rubio proclaimed while speaking at a year-end press conference. He said that the status quo was not sustainable in Gaza, where Israel has continued to strike Hamas targets while the terrorist group has reasserted its control since the October peace agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump .
“That’s why we have a sense of urgency about bringing phase one to its full completion, which is the establishment of the Board of Peace, and the establishment of the Palestinian technocratic authority or organisation that’s going to be on the ground, and then the stabilisation force comes closely thereafter,” the American secretary of state told reporters.
While one plan progresses, another becomes an obstacle
Rubio insisted that progress was made in identifying Palestinians to join the technocratic group and said Washington was aiming to get the governance bodies in place “very soon,” without offering a specific timeline.
The American diplomat was speaking just days after US Central Command hosted a conference in Doha this week with partner nations to plan the International Stabilisation Force (ISF) for Gaza. Following the meeting, two US officials told Reuters last week that international troops could be deployed in the strip as early as next month, after the UN Security Council voted in November to authorise the force.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear how Hamas will be disarmed amid the ceasefire disarmament process. Rubio did not specify who would be responsible for disarming Hamas, and conceded that countries contributing troops want to know what the ISF’s specific mandate is and how it will be funded.
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View All“I think we owe them a few more answers before we can ask anybody to firmly commit, but I feel very confident that we have a number of nation-states acceptable to all sides in this who are willing to step forward and be a part of that stabilisation force,” he said, adding that Pakistan was among the countries that had expressed interest.
He emphasised that establishing security and governance in the coastal enclave was key to drawing donors to pay for reconstruction in Gaza. “Who’s going to pledge billions of dollars to build things that are going to get blown up again because a war starts?” Rubio said, discussing the possibility of a donor conference to raise reconstruction funds. “They want to know who’s in charge, and they want to know that there’s security so that there’ll be long-term stability.”