Patient Hamas reinforces troops as stabilisation force drags its feet
The passage of a UN resolution was seen as a precondition for possible contributions from Arab and Muslim countries, so that step at least has been accomplished. But significant questions remain. Exactly who will contribute troops to the new stabilisation force, what type of forces they will be, who will command them and most importantly, what their remit and their rules of engagement will be, are yet to be made public.
Hamas has rejected the UN-endorsed plan, claiming that any force that sought to disarm Hamas would lose its neutrality as a result and be considered to be a party to the conflict as supporting the Israeli forces. Jordan’s King Hussein has previously given voice to regional concerns about contributions to the force, claiming that he would not be willing to contribute troops to a force deployed into an area where peace enforcement, as opposed to peace-keeping was the order of the day.
It is not exactly clear at this stage what is meant by demilitarising the Gaza Strip. Will Washington and the United States be satisfied at destroying those weapons capable of hitting Israel while leaving small arms in the hands of Hamas fighters? It is impossible to confiscate every weapon held by Hamas and it is likely that the International Stabilisation Force will be keen to avoid direct conflict with Hamas simply to try to achieve an unachievable goal.
There is no doubt that Hamas’s military wing has been significantly degraded over the two years of Israel’s brutal air and sea campaign. But the reality is that it has also added fighters over that time. And while its leadership has been similarly decimated, the nature of such groups is that new leaders develop from amongst the experienced fighters who have survived.
Perhaps not as worldly or charismatic as those they replaced, but it would be foolish to assume that killing the leadership also killed the organisation.
Hamas has the advantage of permanency, as its fighters live and are confined to the very ground they fight on. And the slow pace of authorising, raising and training the Stabilisation Force has given Hamas the opportunity to re-establish itself and to plan for a future in which it seeks to retain arms and influence under the watchful eyes of international forces and the yet-to-be identified Board of Peace. The various anti-Hamas clan or militia groups, often armed by Israel, are small and suffer from limited support because of that very association. Their continued presence, though, is another reason why Hamas will want to retain their military capabilities.
Hamas will seek to display greater patience than the military and political forces that will rule over Gaza. And it will bank on the fact that any continued Israeli military occupation of Gazan territory will reflect badly on other parties involved in post-conflict Gaza, and allow Hamas to present itself to the population as the only organisation capable of standing up to the international community. Issues of identity within the Middle East often play out differently to how outsiders may expect, and the case of Gaza will be no less interesting in seeing how Gazans as a whole react to the presence of the different actors operating in the enclave.
Despite the horrific cost it imposed on the Gazan civilian population as a consequence of its October 2023 terrorist attack against Israel, Hamas will attempt to position itself as the true torchbearer for Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinian Authority will challenge that narrative in Hamas’s own backyard, and the international community will try to de-fang Hamas’s military organisation. All the while Israeli will continue its occupation of parts of Gaza, its withdrawal dependent on some ill-defined performance indicators.
None of this is cause for unbridled optimism. But the least the international community can do is to support an attempt to resolve the most immediate problems in the ‘Palestinian Issue’.
After all, we have seen what the alternative is, and it is not good. The International Stabilisation Force’s best chance of success is to have clear responsibilities laid out for it to adhere to, and the resources to achieve the mission given to it. Even then, its ability to truly disarm Hamas is hardly guaranteed.
Nobel Peace Prize winner won’t risk trip to Oslo
In Gaza, as elsewhere in the Middle East, the devil is always in the detail. The latest step in the long road to enduring peace in the Mediterranean enclave was taken with the passage of a United Nations Security Council Resolution authorising the transitional administration for Gaza and the creation of an International Stabilisation Force that is charged with ensuring the ‘process of demilitarising the Gaza Strip’ and “the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups”. The resolution authorises the force to “use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate”.