Huckabee: US has talked with Gulf states about post-war Gaza administration

The United States has held talks with Gulf Arab states about the possibility that they could administer Gaza once the war is over, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee tells Reuters.

Huckabee said there had been conversations around an interim governing structure involving Gulf Arab states, potentially with the US taking on a supervisory role, with a decision on a permanent arrangement to be made later.

“It’s a discussion. It’s not something that has been accepted by the administration, by Israel, by anyone. I’m not familiar with anything that is ready for signature,” he says.

Arab states have long conditioned their involvement in the post-war management of Gaza on being invited by the Palestinian Authority as part of a pathway to the establishment of a unified Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long rejected efforts to allow the PA to gain a foothold in Gaza.

Huckabee does not say when the talks took place or which Gulf states had been involved.

Huckabee says the US would not join any plan with the PA if Ramallah continues to make payments to individuals and families involved in terror attacks.

“Why would we push something that violates our own law? We’re never going to do that,” he says in an interview, not mentioning that the PA announced that it was ending the policy months ago.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who wants to annex Gaza, this week said that he was negotiating with the US on how to divide Gaza once the war ends. Huckabee says he was not aware of such talks.

Hamas has acknowledged it will no longer govern after the war but has refused to discuss disarmament.

“They have to give up. They can’t continue to think that they have a future,” Huckabee says at the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

Huckabee also said former British prime minister Tony Blair was working on a plan for post-war Gaza, though he was not aware of the details. The Times of Israel revealed the plan earlier this week.

Asked what message Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered on the Gaza City operation during his visit to Israel this week, Huckabee says that the US recognized that “Israel has to do what it has to do to get its hostages back and end the war.”

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.