🔗 Share this article

Proposals for an multinational security mission authorized by the UN to demilitarize Hamas in the Gaza Strip are facing growing opposition after the UAE stated it would not take part due to the absence of a clear legal framework.

Increasing International Reservations

Israeli authorities have already ruled out Turkish involvement, and Jordan's King Abdullah has declared that Jordanian troops will not participate. The Azerbaijani government, once mooted as a potential contributor, did not attend a preparatory meeting in Istanbul and indicated it would not contribute unless a full truce was established.

Emirati officials does not yet see a clear framework for the stability force and under such circumstances will not participate, but backs all political efforts towards resolution – and remain at the vanguard of relief efforts.

Regional Skepticism and Juridical Concerns

The Emirati decision, made by diplomatic representative Dr Anwar Gargash at a forum in the UAE capital, reflects regional reservations about the terms of a US-drafted document previously distributed to diplomats at the UN in New York. The draft places an onus on a US-directed security mission to be the principal means of ensuring security in Gaza after Israel have withdrawn from the territory.

Arab states would like expanded duties to be given to a separate local civilian police force. Global jurisprudence would also forbid foreign troops from deploying into occupied Palestinian territories unless there was explicit local approval; without it, the mission could be viewed as coercive under international statutes, and arguably reinforcing an illegal Israeli occupation.

Local Perspectives and Calls for Definition

A Palestinian American co-author of the ceasefire proposal commented: “It is essential that the mission be sent not to reinforce the illegal presence, but to uphold international law and terminate it. The force will work as long as it operates in the entire occupied territory, including the West Bank, at the invitation of Palestine, and has a defined goal to end the occupation within the context of a sovereign Palestinian state.”

The draft contains no reference to the West Bank in the American proposal, or to a sovereign Palestine, or a two-state solution, a prospect that Israeli leadership opposes.

Continuing Negotiations and Potential Dangers

In-depth talks on the stabilisation force authority, including its leadership structure, began officially on last week in New York, and look likely to be lengthy – potentially creating the development of a vacuum in Gaza that may empower militant factions.

The United States is proposing that it lead the mission although it will not have a large number of personnel involved on the ground. It has previously in effect assumed command of the distribution of humanitarian aid into the territory from a recently established civil military coordination centre based in the neighboring country.

Force Mandate and Administrative Role

The draft American document defines the aim of the security mission as “together with the recently prepared and vetted police force to help secure border areas, secure the safety situation in the region by ensuring the procedure of disarming the Gaza Strip including the elimination and blocking of rebuilding the militant and offensive infrastructure as well as the lasting decommissioning of weapons from militant factions”.

The force, reporting to a “board of peace” led by Donald Trump, and not to the United Nations, would be mandated to use “any required actions” to fulfill its goals.

Regional powers including Qatar are also worried that this mandate is too expansive, and if the group is to disarm, the group will only do so to fellow Palestinians, likely in the civilian police force, at a time that, from the Hamas perspective, signifies the conclusion of occupation.

They also fear the draft mandate extends to granting the stabilisation force a administrative function in the territory, a task that was to be set aside for a local technocratic committee working in cooperation with a restructured Palestinian Authority.

Humanitarian Considerations and Financial Issues

This “interim authority” in Gaza would stay until “the Palestinian Authority has adequately completed its reform program, the approval of which shall be approved to the BoP”, the proposal states. It also “underscores the significance” of unhindered humanitarian aid in the territory, including through the UN, the ICRC, and the Red Crescent.

Nonetheless, it opens the door the exclusion of “any group found to have misused such aid”. The phrase permits the council excluding the UN relief agency, the body that the international court of justice has said is the legal distributor of aid.

Global Political Initiatives

France and Saudi Arabia are currently pressing for a reference to a Palestinian state to be added in the resolution. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is scheduled in the US presidential residence on the specified date, and a Saudi foreign ministry official has said that a mention to a Palestinian state is a prerequisite.

The PA chair, Mahmoud Abbas, met the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Monday to discuss the PA role.

Not the United Nations nor the 15-member UNSC are given a supervisory function over the stabilisation force, supervising the execution of the resolution, a point mostly ignored by the draft text. Nothing is outlined about the funding of this security operation, which, according to the US officials, should be mostly borne by Gulf states, with Saudi Arabia assuming primary responsibility.

Israeli Demands and Local Developments

Israel is seeking formal assurances from the US that it be allowed to follow the pattern of Lebanon and reserve the authority to re-enter Gaza if it considers disarmament is not taking place at a level or speed it demands.

The Israeli proposal was presented to the former US advisor, the ex-president's son-in-law, and the American diplomat, Steve Witkoff. The advisor was in the Israeli capital on Monday to review progress on the truce and Witkoff was due to appear subsequently the same day.

Just the remains of a small number of the initial hundreds of Israeli hostages are still not recovered.

Separately, Israeli officials has been proposing that the territory could yet be divided in two with reconstruction work starting in the Israel occupied parts of the region. International officials maintain that this is not part of the former US administration's proposal.