Top defense officials want Gaza clans to run the show

The idea is to replace Hamas with family groups who have not been as connected to the terror group and to give control over food, water, and other key supplies to groups in Gaza who are not Hamas.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB

JANUARY 3, 2024 22:11

Updated: JANUARY 3, 2024 22:13

Israeli forces operate in the Gaza Strip on January 2, 2023
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

Top defense officials want to initially hand local management of Gaza over to clans who are traditionally connected to specific cities and sectors, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The idea would be to replace Hamas with family groups who have not been as connected to the terror group and to give control over food, water, and other key supplies to groups in Gaza who are not Hamas.

This will be challenging since Hamas has run Gaza for 16 years, and defense officials have not explained how they will be able to guarantee such a separation, but the tactic was used with some success in the US in Iraq and Afghanistan after the fall of regimes there.

Hamas has run Gaza with constant brutality cracking down on any group which tried to establish itself as a competitor on any level, sometimes killing and sometimes maiming opponents.

It is also unclear how this will operate given that almost all of northern Gaza’s 1.4 million people evacuated to southern Gaza, and most of northern Gaza is expected to be uninhabitable for a period of years, some saying as long as five years. A building destroyed by Air Force strikes in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 19, 2023 (credit: REUTERS)

US wants role for Palestinian Authority

Further, the US and the international community want a role for the Palestinian Authority, something which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted, even as his his current partner, but future main likely rival for the premiership, Benny Gantz, has kept open as an option.

Another possibility could be a mix of local clans, with the PA, and with other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE involved all under some kind of UN umbrella.

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