MANAMA: A de facto partition of Gaza between one area controlled by Israel and another is increasingly likely, multiple sources said, as efforts to advance US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war beyond a ceasefire are faltering.
Six European officials with direct knowledge of efforts to implement the next phase of the plan said Reuters was effectively stalled and it now seemed likely that reconstruction would be limited to the Israeli-controlled area. That could lead to years of separation, they warned.
Under the first stage of the plan, which came into effect on October 10, the Israeli army currently controls 53% of Mediterranean territory, including much of its farmland, along with Rafah in the south, parts of Gaza City and other urban areas.
Nearly all of Gaza's two million residents are crammed into tent camps and the rubble of shattered cities in the rest of Gaza.
Reuters Drone footage filmed in November shows catastrophic destruction in the northeast of Gaza City after Israel's final assault before the ceasefire, following months of previous bombing. The area is now divided between Israeli and Hamas control.
The next stage of the plan sees Israel withdraw further from the so-called yellow line agreed upon under Trump's plan, along with establishing a transitional authority to govern Gaza, deploying a multinational security force intended to replace the Israeli army, disarming Hamas and beginning reconstruction.
But the plan does not provide timelines or mechanisms for its implementation. Meanwhile, Hamas refuses to disarm, Israel rejects any involvement by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, and uncertainty over the multinational force persists.
“We are still working out ideas,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at a security conference in Manama this month. “Everyone wants this conflict to end, we all want the same ending here. The question is, how do we make it work?”
Without a major push from the United States to break the stalemate, the yellow line appears destined to become the de facto border that will indefinitely divide Gaza, according to 18 sources, including six European officials and a former US official familiar with the talks.
The United States has drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution that would give the multinational force and a transitional governing body a two-year mandate. But ten diplomats said governments remain hesitant to send troops.
They said European and Arab nations, in particular, were unlikely to participate if responsibilities went beyond peacekeeping and meant direct confrontation with Hamas or other Palestinian groups.
US Vice President JD Vance and Trump's influential son-in-law Jared Kushner said last month that reconstruction funds could quickly begin flowing into the Israeli-controlled area, even without moving to the next stage of the plan, with the idea of creating model areas for some Gazans to live.
Such U.S. proposals suggest that the fragmented reality on the ground risks becoming “locked into something much longer term,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, director of U.S. programs at the International Crisis Group think tank.
A State Department spokesperson said that while “tremendous progress” had been made in advancing Trump's plan, there was more work to do, without answering questions about whether reconstruction would be limited to the area controlled by Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has no intention of reoccupying or governing Gaza, even though far-right ministers in his cabinet have urged the revival of settlements dismantled in 2005.
The military has also resisted such demands for a permanent takeover of territory or direct oversight of Gaza civilians. Instead, Netanyahu has pledged to maintain a buffer zone inside Gaza, along the border, to block any repeat of the October 2023 Hamas attack.
yellow line
Israeli forces have placed large blocks of yellow cement to demarcate the withdrawal line and are building infrastructure on the side of Gaza that their troops control. In the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, the army brought journalists last week to a fortified outpost since the ceasefire.
There, as satellite images show, earth and building debris have been razed into steep mounds, forming a protected vantage point for soldiers. Fresh asphalt has been laid.
Israel's military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said Israel would move further from the line once Hamas met conditions, including disarmament, and once an international security force was in place.
As soon as “Hamas fulfills its part of the agreement, we will be ready to move forward,” Shoshani said. An Israeli government official, responding to written questions for this article, said Israel adhered to the agreement and accused Hamas of delaying the process.
Hamas has released the last 20 living hostages held in Gaza and the remains of 24 deceased hostages as part of the first stage of the plan. The remains of four other hostages are still in Gaza.
Nearby, in Palestinian areas of the city, Hamas has reasserted itself in recent weeks. It has provided security police and civilian workers who guard food stalls and clear paths through the rugged landscape using dented bulldozers. Reuters video shows.
“We really need to fill the security vacuum inside the Gaza Strip,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said at the Manama conference, urging acceleration and warning that a Hamas resurgence could trigger new Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Hazem Qassem, Hamas spokesman in Gaza City, said the group was willing to hand over power to a Palestinian technocratic entity so reconstruction could begin.
“All regions of Gaza deserve reconstruction equally,” he said.
One idea under discussion, according to two European officials and a Western diplomat, was whether Hamas could dismantle weapons under international supervision rather than handing them over to Israel or another foreign force.
European and Arab states want the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and its police to return to Gaza along with the multinational force to take over Hamas.
Thousands of its officers trained in Egypt and Jordan are ready for deployment, but Israel opposes any involvement by the Palestinian Authority.
Reconstruction under Israeli occupation
The six European officials said that, absent a major change in Hamas or Israel's positions, or US pressure on Israel to accept a role for the Palestinian Authority and a path to statehood, they did not see Trump's plan moving beyond the ceasefire.
“Gaza must not be caught in a no man's land between peace and war,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said at the Manama conference.
Salah Abu Amr, 62, a resident of Gaza City, said that if no progress was made in disarming Hamas and redevelopment began across the yellow line, people might think about moving there. But the realities of a divided Gaza were difficult to contemplate, he said.
“Are we all going to be able to enter that area? Or Israel will have a veto on the entry of some of us,” he said. “Are they also going to divide families?”
It is still unclear who would fund the reconstruction of parts of Gaza under Israeli occupation, and Gulf nations are reluctant to intervene without the involvement of the Palestinian Authority and without a path to statehood, which Israel resists.
Reconstruction cost of 70 billion dollars
Reconstruction costs are estimated at $70 billion. Any de facto territorial breakup of Gaza would further delay Palestinian aspirations for an independent nation including the West Bank and worsen the humanitarian catastrophe for a people without adequate housing and almost entirely dependent on aid for their livelihood.
“We cannot allow a fragmentation of Gaza,” said Jordan's Safadi. “Gaza is one, and Gaza is part of the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin also rejected the territorial division of Gaza and said the Palestinian Authority was willing to assume “full national responsibility.”
“There can be no genuine reconstruction or lasting stability without full Palestinian sovereignty over the territory,” he said in a statement in response to questions from Reuters.
