The Age | Paul Nuki | 7 January 2024
The fighting in the Gaza Strip continues with more than 100 targets hit in the past day, but the building blocks for a ceasefire are slowly being put into place.
Late on Wednesday, for the first time, a senior Israeli minister outlined proposals for the future of Gaza once the fighting stops.
The four-point plan, presented to the Israeli cabinet by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, is the third in a series of little-reported initiatives that seem positive.
It follows a three-point plan for peace proposed by Egypt and the announcement this week that the Israel Defence Forces had started withdrawing troops.
The three initiatives are not formally linked, but they have an uncanny symmetry.
Gallant’s piece of the jigsaw was presented shortly before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the region on Friday.
It is almost as if the United States made his visit conditional on the Israelis publishing their plan. Already presented to the US, the plan has four ‘‘pillars’’ for civil rule in post-war Gaza.
First, a multinational force, led by the US in partnership with European and moderate Arab nations, would take responsibility for Gaza’s reconstruction and economic rehabilitation.
Second, existing Palestinian administrative mechanisms would be maintained, provided that the officials within them are not affiliated with Hamas. Authorities that deal with health, sewage, electricity, water and aid would continue to operate.
Third, Egypt would retain responsibility for the main civilian border crossing into Gaza, in coordination with Israel.
Fourth, Israel would retain military control on the borders and the right to take security action inside Gaza where necessary.
‘‘Gaza residents are Palestinian; therefore Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel,’’ Gallant said.
The plan has been presented as Gallant’s own but it is clear it has the approval, for now, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It avoids mention of the two most contentious elements of any serious proposal for peace – a role for the Palestinian Authority and a Palestinian state – but nor does it rule them out.
Yet it is the Israeli plan’s fit with the Egyptian proposals published on Christmas Eve that is most striking. That plan – being debated by Hamas and Israeli representatives in Cairo and also familiar to Blinken – offers a threepoint route to a sustainable peace.
It starts with a two-week lull in fighting in which 40 Israeli hostages held by Hamas (women, children and sick adults) would be released in exchange for 120 Palestinian prisoners and more aid into Gaza.
In the deal’s second phase, a new ad hoc administration would be formed to oversee Gaza’s rehabilitation and prepare the enclave for elections – closely matching Gallant’s vision.
The third and final phase would involve talks for a comprehensive ceasefire that would include the release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners and, once completed, Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza.
So finely balanced is Israeli politics that Netanyahu himself has not directly mentioned either of the proposals, or indeed the ongoing withdrawal of a full five divisions of IDF troops from Gaza.
His ruling coalition government only needs five representatives to resign and it will fall, triggering new elections.
The far right ethno-nationalists propping up the cabinet – men who have been openly calling for Gaza to be cleansed of Palestinians through export to places like the Congo – will almost certainly jump at some point.
Blinken’s job in the coming weeks and months is to somehow make that happen gracefully.
Paul Nuki is global health security editor at The Telegraph, London.