US urges post-conflict vision as Gaza ceasefire nears | Israel-Palestine conflict news

Hamas has recruited almost as many fighters as it has lost amid Israel’s war on Gaza, a US official says.

Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost in its 16-month full-scale war with Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Washington’s top diplomat made the claim during a speech on Tuesday, echoing the Biden administration’s position that Hamas cannot be defeated by “a military campaign alone.”

The comments come amid hopes that a ceasefire deal is close. However, plans for the post-conflict period remain vague amid complex and competing ambitions.

“Without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, Hamas, or something equally heinous and dangerous, will grow back,” Blinken told the Atlantic Council think tank.

“This is exactly what has happened in northern Gaza since October 7. Whenever Israel ends its military operations and withdraws, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge because there is nothing else to fill the void. It is a recipe for perpetual rebellion and perpetual war.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that “total victory” over Hamas and the destruction of the armed group is an important goal of his country’s war in Gaza.

However, analysts and even Israeli military officials and politicians have questioned the likelihood of achieving this goal.

Last month, Yair Golan, a former member of parliament and current chairman of the Democrats of Israel, said the war must end “with a political solution”.

Post-conflict blues

Speaking about the ongoing negotiations, Blinken said: “I think we will get a truce”.

On Tuesday, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said talks to end the conflict are in their final stages, while warning against setting expectations too high until there is an official announcement.

The ceasefire agreement being struck is believed to include three phases involving a cessation of hostilities and the exchange of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners.

The final phase is believed to include discussion of an alternative government to Hamas and plans to rebuild Gaza, which has been devastated.

However, the plans are vague. The Palestinians, the Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for post-war Gaza.

Blinken said Washington was of the view that the Palestinian Authority should invite international partners to “help establish and run an interim administration for the enclave”.

Meanwhile, Israel would need security guarantees and billions of dollars would have to be found for reconstruction.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, speaking on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the global alliance for the implementation of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said that a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”

“We have to move forward now towards a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we have to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he said.