🔗 Share this article

Plans for an multinational security mission authorized by the United Nations to disarm Hamas in the Gaza Strip are facing growing opposition after the UAE announced it would not join due to the lack of a well-defined legal framework.

Growing International Concerns

Israel have already ruled out Turkish participation, and the Jordanian King Abdullah has stated that his country's forces will not participate. The Azerbaijani government, once mooted as a potential participant, was absent from a preparatory session in Turkey and said it would not contribute unless a complete ceasefire was in place.

Emirati officials lacks clarity on a defined framework for the stability mission and under such circumstances will not participate, but will support all political efforts towards peace – and stay at the forefront of humanitarian aid.

Arab Doubts and Juridical Issues

The UAE's announcement, delivered by diplomatic representative Dr Anwar Gargash at a conference in the UAE capital, reflects regional doubts about the terms of a US-drafted document already circulated to diplomats at the UN in New York. The draft assigns responsibility on a American-led security mission to be the primary means of ensuring order in Gaza after Israel have withdrawn from the region.

Regional governments would prefer expanded responsibilities to be given to a distinct local law enforcement agency. Global jurisprudence would also forbid foreign troops from deploying into occupied Palestinian territories unless there was explicit Palestinian consent; otherwise, the mission could be viewed as coercive under UN law, and arguably reinforcing an illegal Israeli occupation.

Palestinian Viewpoints and Calls for Clarity

Jamal Nusseibeh of the ceasefire proposal said: “It is critical that the mission be deployed not to reinforce the unlawful Israeli occupation, but to uphold international law and terminate it. The force will work as long as it enters the entire occupied territory, including the occupied territories, at the invitation of the Palestinian authorities, and has a defined objective to conclude the occupation within the framework of a sovereign Palestinian state.”

The draft contains no reference to the occupied territories in the American proposal, or to a sovereign Palestine, or a two-state solution, a prospect that Israeli leadership rejects.

Ongoing Negotiations and Possible Dangers

Detailed talks on the mission mandate, including its leadership structure, started formally on Thursday in New York, and look likely to be lengthy – potentially creating the emergence of a power gap in Gaza that may empower militant factions.

The United States is proposing that it lead the force although it will not have many troops involved on the terrain. It has already effectively assumed command of the distribution of relief supplies into Gaza from a recently established civil military coordination centre based in the neighboring country.

Mission Objectives and Governance Function

The proposed US resolution outlines the purpose of the stabilisation force as “along with the newly trained and vetted police force to help secure border areas, stabilise the safety situation in the region by ensuring the process of disarming the territory including the elimination and blocking of reconstructing the military terror and offensive infrastructure as well as the lasting removal of weapons from non-state armed groups”.

The mission, reporting to a “board of peace” led by the former US president, and not to the UN, would be mandated to use “any required actions” to achieve its objectives.

Regional powers including Qatari officials are also worried that this authority is overly broad, and if the group is to disarm, the faction will only do so to local counterparts, likely in the civilian police force, at a time that, from the militant viewpoint, signifies the end of Israeli presence.

They also fear the proposed authority spills into giving the mission a administrative role in Gaza, a responsibility that was to be reserved for a local technocratic committee working in conjunction with a restructured Palestinian Authority.

Aid Considerations and Funding Questions

This “interim authority” in Gaza would stay until “the Palestinian Authority has adequately finished its reform program, the satisfaction of which shall be approved to the board of peace”, the draft says. It also “emphasizes the importance” of unhindered relief in Gaza, including through the UN, the ICRC, and the Red Crescent.

However, it opens the door the exclusion of “any organisation determined to have misused such assistance”. The phrase permits the council barring the UN relief agency, the organization that the global judicial body has ruled is the legal provider of aid.

International Diplomatic Initiatives

French officials and Saudi Arabia are already pressing for a reference to a Palestinian state to be included in the document. The Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman, is scheduled in the US presidential residence on 18 November, and Manal Radwan has said that a reference to a independent Palestine is a prerequisite.

The Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, met the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on this week to discuss the authority's function.

Neither the United Nations nor the 15-member security council are assigned a oversight role over the stabilisation force, monitoring the execution of the proposal, a point largely overlooked by the draft text. No details is specified about the financing of this security operation, which, according to the Americans, should be largely covered by regional nations, with the Kingdom taking the lead.

Israeli Demands and Local Developments

Israeli authorities is seeking formal assurances from the United States that it be allowed to follow the pattern of the Lebanese situation and retain the authority to return to Gaza if it believes disarmament is not occurring at a scale or pace it requires.

The request was presented to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff. The advisor was in Jerusalem on this week to review progress on the truce and Witkoff was scheduled to appear subsequently the same day.

Only the bodies of a small number of the initial 251 Israeli hostages remain unreturned.

Separately, Israeli officials has been proposing that the Gaza Strip could still be divided in two parts with reconstruction work starting in the Israel occupied parts of the strip. International officials insist that this is no part of the former US administration's proposal.