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U.S. and Israeli officials looking to the future of the Gaza Strip after dislodging Hamas have begun discussing possibilities, including potentially installing an interim government backed by the United Nations and with the involvement of Arab governments, people familiar with US government deliberations told Bloomberg.
The discussions are still at an early stage and hinge on developments yet to unfold, not least of which would be success in an Israeli ground assault, according to the people, who asked not to be identified detailing private deliberations.
And any such possibility would need buy-in from Arab nations around the region, which is by no means certain.
Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they don’t intend to occupy Gaza, but they’ve also said that continued rule by Hamas is unacceptable after the Oct. 7 attack in which the group killed 1,400 Israelis and took 200 people hostage.
The challenge of achieving both of those objectives has helped fuel US worries that Israel hasn’t given sufficient thought to what comes after a ground assault. The US is also worried that a Gaza attack with no clear objective beyond ousting Hamas could fan the conflict into a regional war.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the focus at the moment is uniting the world against terrorists and on delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza as soon as possible. Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.
On Friday, Israel’s defense minister suggested that the country has no intention of running the territory after its military operations wind down. Israel aims to disentangle itself from Gaza and to create a “new security reality” in the region, Yoav Gallant said to the parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee in Tel Aviv.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has suggested handing control of Gaza back to the Palestinian Authority, which was defeated by Hamas in elections there in 2006.
“I think in the end the best thing is that the Palestinian Authority goes back into Gaza,” Lapid said at a media briefing in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
The Palestinian people in Gaza deserve a leadership that allows them to live in peace and security, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on CBS on Sunday.
“What that exactly looks like going forward, I’m not in a position to say today,” Sullivan said, “But it is the right question to be asking now, as this unfolds, because we have to think not just about the immediate term, but about the long-term, too.”