Arab leaders reject international force in post-war Gaza, but offer no alternative

At Doha Forum, Qatari PM says Palestinians don’t need a ‘guardian,’ vows Arab countries won’t send troops; PA’s Shtayyeh says Hamas ‘integral’ to Palestinian society

Left to right: CNN's Becky Anderson, Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and Jordan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi attend the panel discussion 'What Now for the Middle East' during the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on December 10, 2023. (Salim Matramkot/AFP)
Left to right: CNN's Becky Anderson, Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and Jordan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi attend the panel discussion 'What Now for the Middle East' during the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on December 10, 2023. (Salim Matramkot/AFP)

Middle East leaders gathered in Qatar sought ideas for what would happen after the Israel-Hamas war ends, but remained firmly opposed to putting their own troops or international forces in the ravaged territory.

The Palestinian question is extremely delicate for leaders in the Arab world, where the war has sparked massive protests.

At the annual Doha Forum that ended Monday, Qatar reiterated that no Arab country would send in forces to stabilize the situation after the guns of Israel and Hamas fall silent.

“No one from the region will accept… to put boots on the ground [following after] an Israeli tank. This is unacceptable,” said Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

But he also opposed any international force in Gaza under current conditions. “We shouldn’t always talk about the Palestinians as if they need some guardian,” he said.

The Palestinians were represented by the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, but not Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas terrorists since they violently ousted the Fatah-led PA in 2007.

IDF soldiers seen operating in the Gaza Strip in this handout photo published on December 12, 2023. (IDF)

Despite their rivalry, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Hamas could not be eradicated.

They are “an integral part of the Palestinian political mosaic,” he told the forum.

Yet eradication is precisely what Israel is seeking with its war — after Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians massacred in their homes and at a music festival amid brutal atrocities, and taking some 240 hostages back to Gaza.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has claimed that since the start of the war, more than 18,400 people have been killed, mostly civilians. These figures cannot be independently verified and are believed to include some 7,000 Hamas terrorists, according to Israel, as well as civilians killed by misfired Palestinian rockets. Another estimated 1,000 terrorists were killed in Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a conversation with US President Joe Biden that there was “disagreement” between the allies over “the day after Hamas.”

The premier said he hoped “we will reach agreement here” but he vowed not to “repeat the mistake of Oslo,” referring to the two-part deal signed in 1993-1995, which created the PA and gave it varying levels of autonomy in parts of the West Bank as a first stage on the way to a Palestinian state.

File: US President Joe Biden, left, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)

The Oslo process was eventually derailed by a wave of deadly Palestinian terror attacks over the following years.

The comparison sparked outcry among both opposition figures and those among the ranks of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.

‘Heart of all conflicts’

Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh warned that failure to deal with “the day after” the war would mean “uglier scenes in a year or two.”

He hoped the war would act as a “wake-up call,” especially as the conflict threatened a wider regional conflagration.

The war has encouraged groups linked to Iran, which backs Hamas, to launch attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria, while Yemen’s Houthis have fired missiles and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group has launched daily attacks on Israel’s north, leading to ongoing cross-border clashes.

The Israel-Palestinian question is “at the center and the heart of all conflicts in the region,” said Sheikh Mohammed.

“What’s coming out of Gaza every day is not just affecting those forces in Lebanon or Yemen. It also affects an entire generation that might be radicalized because of these images,” the Qatari premier added.

But concrete policies were lacking at the forum, which excluded high-level representatives from key regional players Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani addresses the opening session of the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on December 10, 2023. (Salim Matramkot/AFP)

The United States, Israel’s key diplomatic and military ally, has previously indicated the PA could govern both Gaza and the West Bank in the aftermath of hostilities.

But the Palestinians say a much more fundamental response is needed, one that takes seriously “an independent, sovereign, viable state of Palestine on all the Palestinian territories” in Shtayyeh’s words.

Qatar, which hosts Hamas leadership in its territory, said it is still working on a fresh truce like the one last month that saw a one-week break in fighting and scores of Israeli hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid.

But Sheikh Mohammed warned Israel’s relentless bombardment in Gaza was “narrowing this window” for a ceasefire.

“There is a collective responsibility on all of us to stop the killing, to go back to the table to find a lasting solution,” he said.

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