Gaza: What Will The “Day After” Look Like?

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

What will Gaza look like when the current war between Hamas and Israel finally ends? Who will rule and try to reconstruct the small enclave? Will Israel retain some say? Does Hamas remain a viable political force? All these questions are being asked in the capitals of the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Canada.

Israel has categorically ruled out any governing role for Hamas after the conflict ends. Hamas has also rejected any form of Israeli administration in Gaza.

Hamas has begun to lay the groundwork for reconciling with the rival Fatah-led PLO, which runs the Palestinian Authority (PA) that now governs the West Bank, thereby guaranteeing that Hamas is part of whatever governance structure emerges.

Hamas may wish to emulate the Hezbollah model. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is nominally part of the weak Lebanese state, allowing it to influence policy and have at least some say in directing government funds, yet it maintains complete autonomy in running its own powerful military and in fighting Israel.

Under a new arrangement for Gaza, Hamas hopes to exert the same influence and independence with its own movement and militia, neither beholden to nor controlled by a larger Palestinian government.

Can this happen? After all, as a longtime sworn enemy of Fatah and the PA, Hamas took over Gaza by armed force in 2007 after a civil war with the PLO. Even if they two agreed to partner, would other countries acquiesce?

In his multiple visits to the region during the first months of the war, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s presented scenarios for governing the Gaza Strip. The goal: a reformed and less corrupt PA to re-exert control over the Strip and regain enough legitimacy in the eyes of its people to govern an eventual Palestinian state. 

He visited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presented the proposal to him. Abbas conditionally accepted but only within a political process that leads to a Palestinian state.

The U.S. plan would establish a PA government that would be tasked with rebuilding Gaza under international auspices. It would reorganize itself to run the Gaza Strip, including security control, which may involve recruiting local elements, bringing in forces from the West Bank or diaspora refugee camps.

Hamas “technocrats” might be part of this unity government, if the group abandons its dependence on the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran. This would pave the way for several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to take responsibility for rebuilding Gaza.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has also held talks with the so-called Arab Quint -- Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar -- about participation in a multinational Arab peacekeeping mission operating under a UN Security Council resolution, as long as it is coupled with support of Palestinian self-determination.

Though UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan has responded that his country would not participate in a new civil administration in Gaza, Bahrain has indicated a willingness to join such a force.

The war has opened the door for other possible scenarios. One proposal assumes that after the end of the war, and to fill the vacuum that may arise because of the collapse of the Hamas regime, influential countries, Egypt and Jordan in particular, might form an Arab force with the participation of local representatives from Gaza to manage the reconstruction process. They, along with Saudi Arabia, are crucial to stabilizing and rebuilding Gaza.

The Arab League on May 16 called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed until a two-state solution can be negotiated. This plan is very much on the table, as Arab countries have announced their readiness to send troops to Gaza to contribute to its security. Its realization is mainly linked to Israel’s success in effectively weakening Hamas to the point where it cannot resist.

Under this scenario, the PA would not be able to extend its control from its West Bank base to the Gaza Strip. The status of Jerusalem and the West Bank would be suspended and separate from that of the Gaza Strip, so that the fate of that area would be dealt with in the future.

The Gaza Strip represents strategic depth for Egypt, which administered it from 1948 until June 1967, when Israel occupied it. In this third plan, Egypt would have to play this role again to fill any vacuum that may arise because of Hamas’s military defeat, as Egypt has had bitter experience in the war against terrorism in Sinai, whose borders are connected to the southern Gaza Strip.

Egypt would not necessarily administer Gaza directly but could do so by expanding the influence of the Egyptian intelligence service there, as it is currently doing in eastern Libya. On the Palestinian side, Hamas may view Egypt’s management as a way to preserve itself from completely disappearing. However, this would not be welcomed by the PA, which considers Gaza an essential part of the territory of the Palestinian state, giving it the exclusive right to govern the Strip.

Whatever comes next, is it too much to hope that the war may yet provide an opportunity towards a settlement that achieves some measure of stability in the Middle East?