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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel launched on Friday his most detailed proposal but for a postwar Gaza, pledging to retain indefinite navy management over the enclave, whereas ceding the administration of civilian life to Gazans with out hyperlinks to Hamas.
The plan, if realized, would make it nearly unimaginable to determine a Palestinian state together with Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a minimum of within the quick time period. That would doubtless speed up a conflict between Israel and a rising variety of its international companions, together with the United States, which might be pushing for Palestinian sovereignty after the conflict ends.
The blueprint for Gaza comes after practically 20 weeks of conflict within the territory and a demise toll approaching 30,000 folks, a minimum of half of them girls and youngsters, based on Gazan authorities.
Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal for postwar Gaza was circulated to cupboard ministers and journalists early on Friday. He has laid out many of the phrases of the proposal in earlier public statements, however this was the primary time they’d been collected in a single doc.
The proposal additionally requires the dismantling of UNRWA, the U.N. company charged with delivering the majority of the life-sustaining support to the besieged territory. And it requires an overhaul of the Gazan schooling and welfare techniques, in addition to buffer zones alongside Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt.
The plan was circulated on the identical day that American, Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officers started negotiations in Paris over the discharge of hostages and a potential cease-fire.
It additionally got here as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned he was “upset” by an Israeli announcement that it deliberate to construct 3,000 new housing models in settlements within the occupied West Bank as retribution for the killing of an Israeli settler this week. He referred to as the settlements “inconsistent with worldwide regulation.”
Mr. Blinken’s feedback, in addition to the contents of Friday’s postwar blueprint, put into sharper focus the widening hole in expectations and coverage between Mr. Netanyahu and the Biden administration on the occupied West Bank and the way forward for postwar Gaza.
Palestinians instantly condemned Mr. Netanyahu’s plan, with Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s chief, saying that it aimed “to perpetuate Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and forestall the institution of a Palestinian state.”
Inside Israel, the postwar plan obtained a muted response. Many of the central proposals broadly align with majority opinion in Israel, together with making it tough to create a Palestinian state within the quick time period, a place that polling suggests has broad home assist.
Analysts described elements of the plan as fastidiously written to postpone long-term selections about Gaza’s destiny and to keep away from irreversible confrontations with each home allies and international companions. The proposal signaled to Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing base that he’s defying international stress on Israel to go away Gaza and to permit a Palestinian state in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But the vagueness of its wording additionally signaled to the United States and different international powers urgent for Palestinian sovereignty that there’s nonetheless room to maneuver.
“It leaves numerous choices open and postpones numerous selections,” mentioned Nadav Strauchler, a former strategist for Mr. Netanyahu.
“He is treading a skinny line,” Mr. Strauchler mentioned, of the prime minister. “Think what number of totally different eyes and audiences are studying this paper with totally different glasses.”
Yet on some factors, Mr. Netanyahu’s blueprint appears sure to rankle, if not anger, Israel’s neighbors and allies.
It envisions the creation of an Israeli-controlled buffer zone alongside the size of Gaza’s border with Egypt, a transfer that dangers inflaming tensions with the Egyptian authorities. That side of the plan would require Israel to invade Rafah, the southernmost metropolis of Gaza, the place most Gazans are at present sheltering, risking their mass displacement onto Egyptian territory, an final result that Egypt has repeatedly warned in opposition to.
The plan additionally says that Israel will search to retain management over a sliver of land inside Gaza, alongside the Israeli border, the place its navy is systematically demolishing 1000’s of buildings so as to create one other buffer zone. Israel’s intention is to make it tougher for militants in Gaza to repeat a raid like that of Oct. 7, though the United States and others have spoken out in opposition to any effort to scale back the scale of Gaza.
The plan doesn’t explicitly handle some of the disputed matters outdoors of Israel: whether or not Israeli settlers could be allowed to reestablish communities on Gazan soil, as Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing supporters are pushing for.
A senior authorities official, talking on situation of anonymity to debate a matter that places the prime minister at odds together with his base, mentioned that there have been no plans to resettle Gaza with Jews, however declined to say so on the file, leaving Mr. Netanyahu with room to maneuver sooner or later.
Mr. Netanyahu’s doc would should be adopted by his authorities, although there is no such thing as a timeline but for such discussions.
The plan lays out a broad imaginative and prescient for the governance of Gaza after the conflict.
Administrative management over the territory could be handed to “native stakeholders with managerial expertise” who’re “not affiliated with international locations or entities that assist terrorism.” The reference to terrorism goals to exclude anybody that Israel says has connections to Hamas.
This a part of the plan, too, conflicted with the proposal laid out by Biden administration officers, who’ve mentioned repeatedly {that a} revamped Palestinian Authority, the physique that administers elements of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, ought to play a job in postwar Gaza.
The Israeli blueprint doesn’t explicitly point out the Palestinian Authority, however the reference to native residents implicitly guidelines out the involvement of the authority’s management in a postwar Gaza, analysts mentioned
The doc even leaves open the potential of “a everlasting association with the Palestinians,” nevertheless it says that “will solely be achieved by way of direct negotiation between the events” — an implicit rejection of hints by international locations, together with Britain and France, that they might unilaterally acknowledge a Palestinian state.
Mr. Netanyahu has beforehand rejected the idea of an impartial Palestinian state, however his plan launched on Friday didn’t explicitly rule it out.
Yet, whilst Mr. Netanyahu’s blueprint spurred debate over the way forward for Gaza, support teams and the United Nations had been warning with rising urgency concerning the right here and now: the dearth of meals, ingesting water and drugs in Gaza.
“I concern we’re on the sting of a monumental catastrophe with grave implications for regional peace, safety, and human rights,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner normal, wrote in a letter to the president of the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
Fewer support vans have entered Gaza this week than earlier within the 12 months, when between 100 and 200 vans had been arriving on most days; each border crossings used for support have steadily closed, generally as a result of Israeli protesters urgent for the discharge of hostages have blocked a crossing. A complete of 69 vans entered on Tuesday and Wednesday, the company mentioned, including that it’s aiming for 500 per day to fulfill Gaza’s wants.
Long skeptical of UNRWA, Israel has charged that 30 of the company’s workers participated within the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assaults that killed 1,200 folks and noticed a whole bunch of hostages hauled to Gaza, the place a minimum of 100 nonetheless stay.
The United Nations says it has fired workers who had been suspected of involvement within the assaults and has disciplined and even terminated workers members for collaborating in inappropriate political actions. But Mr. Lazzarini additionally pleaded with international locations that suspended funding after Israel made the allegations, saying it will be “immensely irresponsible” to punish a whole neighborhood “due to allegations of felony acts in opposition to some people.”
Reporting was contributed by Vivian Yee, Aaron Boxerman, Johnatan Reiss, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Edward Wong.
