Are we closer to a Gaza international peace force after Istanbul meeting?
Foreign ministers from seven Arab and Islamic-majority countries have met in Turkiye’s largest city, Istanbul, to discuss the possibility of establishing an international stabilisation force in Gaza as well as the ceasefire in the territory.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressed reporters after the meeting and said conversations were still ongoing over the proposed international force for Gaza, which was included in United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan.
The body, which is expected to manage security inside the Gaza Strip, is still unformed, and its responsibilities have still not been publicly defined.
Several countries involved in Monday’s meeting have previously called for a United Nations Security Council resolution establishing the force if they are to be involved. And the potential members of the force want its mandate to be clearly defined.
They had previously had what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described as a “fruitful” meeting on the topic with Trump in late September.
US seeks UN approval for Gaza security force: Report
The US news website Axios is reporting that Washington has sent several UN Security Council members a draft resolution for the establishment of an international force in Gaza for at least two years.
Axios cited a US official as saying the draft document will be the basis for negotiations over the coming days between UN Security Council members with the goal of voting to establish it in the coming weeks and deploying the first troops to Gaza by January.
The official stressed that the security force will be an “enforcement force and not a peacekeeping force”, according to Axios.
The draft document states that the force would be tasked with securing Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, protecting civilians and humanitarian corridors, and training a new Palestinian police force, Axios reported.
The force would also “stabilize the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups”, the outlet reported.
Occupation force like I said, a resolution to legitimize Israel's continuous breaking of the ceasefire by putting an international 'mandate' behind the continued enforcement of the blockade as well as the continued destruction of Gaza's land and continued starvation and killing of civilians.
Arab, Muslim states unlikely to embrace ‘enforcer’ role in Gaza
The Trump administration’s proposals for an international stabilisation force to operate in Gaza under phase two of the US-backed ceasefire are likely to face significant challenges, says Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
He said the US vision for the force, outlined in a draft document reportedly sent to several UN Security Council members as a basis for negotiations, suggested the force would be “an enforcer”.
“In other words, they would be given some significant latitude to carry out military operations. The language that I’ve seen suggests that they are going to seek to disarm Hamas,” Elmasry told Al Jazeera.
He questioned whether the Arab and Muslim countries that would potentially make up the international force “understand what they’re actually signing up for based on Trump’s vision because there would be significant likelihood of … violent conflict”.
“I don’t know that any of those countries want that,” he said. “These Muslim and Arab states don’t necessarily want to sign up for fighting against Hamas on behalf of Israel."
