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What will it take to prevent full-scale war from erupting again in Gaza? President Trump's peace plan was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council last month, but there's a lot of disagreement about which steps to take and when and how, as NPR's Daniel Estrin reports.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: As soon as Hamas finds and hands over a final Israeli hostage body, it'll be Phase 2 of the ceasefire. The first part might be the easiest - announcing a transitional leadership to replace Hamas. President Trump told reporters we'll hear early in the new year which world leaders will sit with him on the Board of Peace overseeing the administration of Gaza.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, we'll do it early next year. And the Board of Peace are going to - it'll be one of the most legendary boards ever. Everybody wants to be on it.
ESTRIN: That Board of Peace will oversee a committee of Palestinian technocrats from Gaza who will lead Gaza's daily affairs. Hamas has agreed to cede control to them, but then come the tricky parts of the plan. The U.S. wants a new international stabilization force to help support the disarmament of Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sounded skeptical in comments this month.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Speaking Hebrew).
ESTRIN: "Our friends in America want to try and establish an international force to do the job," Netanyahu said. "I told them, please be my guest." Netanyahu said such an international force might not be capable of doing the main task - disarming Hamas. Many countries being considered to contribute troops don't want to be in charge of disarming Hamas. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said this month...
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HAKAN FIDAN: We shouldn't expect from ISF a work that has not been completed by the Israeli security forces.
ESTRIN: He said an international force should first deploy along a border zone as a buffer separating between Israeli forces and Hamas to prevent further war, and then later, Hamas would decommission its weapons. But Israel says it won't withdraw its troops from Gaza until Hamas is disarmed. Mediating country Qatar is trying to get the sides to act at the same time, senior Qatari official Majed al-Ansari told reporters.
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MAJED AL-ANSARI: We cannot have a situation where we end up with, you know, Palestinians handing over their weapons and Israeli occupation just remaining there. So this needs to be linked together to make sure that the both processes happen at the same time.
ESTRIN: The U.S. gathered representatives of countries this week in Qatar to plan the international force for Gaza. But the force's mandate is still unclear, and no country has publicly committed troops yet. It's also unclear how the U.S. can achieve its goal of having the international force in Gaza by early 2026. The force is supposed to work alongside a new Palestinian civil police force. The European Union is planning to train about 3,000 Palestinian police and judges and prosecutors, but a European official who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity told NPR that the majority of Palestinian police officers would likely start training in April, and the training would take time. The longer the ceasefire plan lingers, the more Qatar is concerned full-scale war can resume, says Ansari, the Qatari official.
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AL-ANSARI: Every lack of decision on a lot of these issues provides time for the ceasefire to collapse. We are quite concerned, but we believe in the process and we believe in the partnership with the United States over it.
ESTRIN: In the two months since the U.S. brokered the ceasefire, Gaza health officials say more than 380 Palestinians, including children, have been killed by Israeli military fire, and Israel says several of its soldiers have been killed by Palestinian fire in Gaza - which means young lives are at stake the longer it takes to choreograph the next steps of President Trump's peace plan. Daniel Estrin, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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