Reconstructing Gaza: The devil is in the detail

Peloni:  The ISF will never work for the very reason that is cited by Cohen below: “[Arab countries] are wary…of being perceived as doing the dirty work of the Israelis, and they are determined not to risk the lives of their soldiers in that regard.”  

No matter the composition of the ISF, this would be true.  Recognition and ‘peace’ treaties with Israel has hardly changed the reality that Arab states act in tto the stability of their own regimes, which includes satisfying the radicals in their own realm with false representations and baseless condemnations of Israel.  Multiple examples might be chosen to exemplify this fact, for instance, with the UAE, whose domestic outlawing of the Muslim Brotherhood contrasts significantly with their call to ‘reform’ the UAE.  The Arabs will always have a foreign face which is markedly different from their domestic face, and the reason is that they both serve to support their national interests and the survival of their respective regimes.  Unfortunately, Israel is being forced to abrogate its own national interest yet again with the adoption of a farcical security force in Gaza which will seek to support foreign national interests at the expense of that of Israel.

The world is on the cusp of making the same mistake with Hamas that it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Still, there is progress to be made if the involved parties pay attention.

Ben Cohen | FDD | Nov 21, 2025

No doubt, the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 on the postwar reconstruction of Gaza was a triumph for American diplomacy. Drafted by the United States and eagerly endorsed by a host of Middle Eastern and Islamic nations on Nov. 17—among them Qatar and Turkey, two of Israel’s most insidious adversaries—the resolution garnered 13 of the 15 votes on the council. Russia and China, two of the five permanent members with the power of veto, decided not to oppose the resolution, meekly abstaining instead.

However, the diplomatic obstacles to securing the resolution’s passage pale in comparison with the political and strategic obstacles confronting its implementation.

In post-conflict situations where outside forces are deployed to ensure stability, a distinction between peacekeeping and peace enforcement has traditionally been made. “Blue Helmet” operations deployed by the United Nations are either governed by Chapter VI of the U.N. Charter, which restricts these missions to monitoring, mediating and negotiating duties among the belligerent parties, or Chapter VII, which allows for the use of force in applying the mandate.

From what I can tell, the International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza proposed by Resolution 2803 is more Chapter VII than Chapter VI. Additionally, while the ISF has the authorization of the U.N. Security Council, it will not be managed by the U.N.’s peacekeeping department in New York. In that light, the ISF looks broadly similar to KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force established in Kosovo following the defeat of the Serbian regime in 1999, whose legal status was also enshrined by a Security Council resolution.

KFOR, however, came into being following a sustained NATO bombing campaign against Serbia to curb the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority in Kosovo. Eight days after KFOR boots landed on the ground, the Serbs had withdrawn from Kosovo entirely. In the Gaza Strip, however, Hamas has only become more entrenched since the ceasefire was announced in mid-October.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas is meant to disarm. The terror group has no intention of doing so. Right after Resolution 2803 was passed, a Hamas statement asserted that the ISF’s ostensible duties, “including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”

Even with a mandate that allows for enforcement, it is very difficult to envisage ISF troops—many of whom will be drawn from Muslim countries with established records of support for the Palestinian cause—clashing with Hamas terrorists in a bid to disarm them. Indeed, an aversion to peace enforcement is a key reason why both Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have ruled out the participation of their troops. They are wary, perhaps understandably, of being perceived as doing the dirty work of the Israelis, and they are determined not to risk the lives of their soldiers in that regard.

If the ISF is deployed without a verifiable commitment from Hamas to disarm, then the correct comparison is not with KFOR, but UNIFIL (U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon)—the 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in Southern Lebanon following the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Just as in Gaza, in Lebanon, there was a clear demand on Hezbollah to give up its weapons as instructed by Resolution 1701 of the Security Council. But no outside party was willing to follow through with force, if necessary, to achieve this outcome, and so UNIFIL was deployed while Hezbollah remained armed to the teeth.

The world is on the cusp of making the same mistake with Hamas in Gaza. And the victim of that error will be Israel, which will have to factor in the presence of thousands of foreign troops whenever the Israel Defense Forces is compelled to respond militarily to Hamas provocations.

If ISF troops end up as collateral damage in an Israeli strike, the follow-on script pretty much writes itself; handwringing over supposed Israeli brutality, condemnations at the United Nations and other world forums of alleged Israeli ceasefire violations, attempts by pro-Palestinian legislators to impose or reimpose military and commercial embargos on Israel, and so on. Those outcomes, which are predictable, may also be overshadowed by far less predictable tensions between Jerusalem and Washington. While the United States shares the Israeli goal of defanging Hamas, it is also deeply wedded to the idea of the ISF and mindful of the need to keep its Arab allies on side.

Israel was therefore correct to welcome the passage of Resolution 2803, if only for the sake of maintaining good relations with Washington. It must also cooperate with the ISF for the same reason. But none of that means that Israel can’t demand certain guarantees, especially as the reconstruction of Gaza envisaged by the United States cannot proceed without Israeli consent.

One demand Israel can reasonably make is that all countries providing troops to the ISF should either have full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state or assume them before dispatching their contingents. This would apply, for example, to Indonesia, whose willingness to supply troops for the ISF has been widely reported on.

In the same vein, Israel should negotiate rules of engagement and operational protocols with the ISF to ensure that its ability to strike at Hamas is not compromised by the presence of ISF troops.

Additionally, Jerusalem should seek to avoid an outcome whereby the ISF spends more than a decade in Gaza, as UNIFIL has done in Lebanon. Nor should it rely on the ISF to be the only hurdle between Hamas and a repeat of the mass atrocities in Israel’s south on Oct. 7, 2023. There will need to be a permanent buffer zone along Israel’s lengthy border with Gaza with traffic between the territories limited to the supply of humanitarian aid and occasional crossings by Palestinian civilians—for example, those traveling abroad for urgent medical treatment or starting new lives outside the war-torn enclave.

Finally, Israel should take an active interest in the appointments to the so-called Board of Peace, to be chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump, slated to manage Gaza’s governance. Israel should lobby for appointees who will not allow Hamas to worm its way into governing through either the front door or the rear entrance. And just as it has rightly rejected the participation of Turkish and Qatari troops in the ISF, Israel should object to representatives of either regime serving on the Board of Peace.

In his address to the U.N. Security Council backing Resolution 2803, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz cited the old saying that defines insanity as doing the same thing over and again, yet expecting different results. In the same spirit, if the U.S.-directed plan for Gaza is to avoid the pitfalls of the recent past, then it needs to learn the lessons of history and apply them now.