The security cabinet of Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has finally authorized the entry of the International Stabilization Force into the Gaza Strip, the peace mission driven by the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
The confirmation has been announced by the Director General of the Gaza Peace Board, the Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, who has expressed on social media his gratitude for "the steps taken by Israel to facilitate the deployment" of this international contingent in the Palestinian territory, still without a defined schedule.
According to statements collected by the Israeli newspaper 'Israel Hayom', the Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, has indicated that the Israeli Executive has put aside its initial doubts as a gesture of support for the proposal led by Trump. "This is an international plan. It may not succeed, but we are not going to undermine it," he stated.
The same newspaper reported last month that the Gaza Peace Board, the body responsible for the process and on which this international force depends, had already enabled a "pilot zone" within the Strip to begin its reconstruction under the protection of this deployment.
The decision has been contested by the Minister of National Security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, who has emphasized the enormous obstacles facing the operation, starting with the fact that Hamas maintains its armed wing intact.
"Since Hamas has not fulfilled its commitment to disarm and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, we are also not bound by the agreement. I opposed the 20-point plan from the beginning. The solution in Gaza is to encourage emigration," he stated.
Hamas, for its part, argues that any disarmament first requires the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave, the end of attacks —more than 1,300 Palestinians have died in Israeli bombings since the last ceasefire came into effect in October of last year—, the unhindered arrival of humanitarian aid, and the complete reopening of border crossings.
Although the Islamist movement has admitted that a new Palestinian political force may take control of the Strip, it claims that it should do so without external interference and has expressed its discomfort with the new "government of technocrats" designed by the Peace Board under the name of National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (CNAG), led by the Palestinian economist and former deputy minister of the Palestinian Authority Ali Shaath.
In a gesture of rapprochement, Hamas announced at the beginning of the month the dissolution of its management body for Gaza during the war, the so-called Emergency Government Committee, as a show of goodwill and an exercise of "patriotism".
As the next steps are being finalized, Mladenov considers that the approval of Israel and the deployment of the international force constitute "a critical element of the agreed framework for the stabilization of Gaza, the acceleration of demilitarization, and the transition to this provisional Palestinian administration".
The diplomat has also emphasized that the entire process has the endorsement of the UN Security Council, as reflected in its resolution 2803.