Jordan and Egypt train police and security forces for duty in Gaza

Arab countries are training Palestinian police officers for duty in Gaza, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine said on Friday, as plans for post-conflict governance and security in the strip take shape.

Palestinians should be in charge of security in the strip, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry Badr Abdelatty said during a panel at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, and both Palestinian security personnel and an international peacekeeping force would be ready to ensure the strip’s security.

“That's why we are empowering the Palestinian policemen, providing training and recruiting new members in order to be deployed in Gaza to take care of law, order and security in Gaza,” the minister told an audience in the Turkish resort city. “And, of course, we are standing ready for deployment of an international force – protection, peacekeeping, whatever we call it, to be there in order to provide security and protection for the Palestinians.”

Mr Abdelatty did not give a timeline for their deployment, but his Jordanian counterpart, Aymen Safadi, said Palestinian personnel have already been trained by both Jordan and Egypt and could eventually form part of a security infrastructure in the strip.

“We have to be able to develop a complete security structure that will ensure that Gaza is safe and that we have convincing security plan – part of it is the training of Palestinian police, and I think both in Egypt and Jordan, we said that we are ready to train Palestinian police,” Mr Safadi said, in response to a question from The National on the scope of the deployment. “In Jordan, we've already trained police from the West Bank over the years, Egypt has trained police for Gaza.”

He said additional training would come as part of a “broader plan” for Gaza's future based on a humanitarian response, early recovery and reconstruction, governance, security and a political horizon.

“In the context of that comprehensive plan that would allow us to move forward, whatever it takes to be able to ensure the conditions of security, we're willing to do that,” Mr Safadi said. “I think Egypt already started with some numbers and deadline and timing.”

The training of Palestinian security forces for the strip appear to come counter to Israeli plans to take over parts of the strip in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government says are manoeuvres needed to ensure Israel’s security and pressure militant group Hamas to release the hostages it is still holding.

Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz has said the country would expand its so-called security zones in Gaza to include the southern city of Rafah, a move that followed widespread eviction orders for the strip that has made swathes of the territory “no-go” zones for its Palestinian residents.

Mohammad Mustafa, Prime Minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, confirmed that his government is working with Egypt and Jordan to train and retrain security personnel – under his government's power – who are deployed in Gaza but not currently active. The militant group Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since it seized control in 2007.

“The Palestinian Authority still has a police force in Gaza that is not active, unfortunately, but we are now working towards re-engaging them, retraining them, and the training question then comes into that context,” Mr Mustafa said. “Partially, we're working together with Egypt and Jordan to train some of these members of Palestinian Authority police force that are currently in Gaza, to train them so that they can assume part of the responsibility for domestic security in Gaza.”

There will also be additional recruitment of personnel, either from Gaza or itself, or the deployment of West Bank-based security forces to the strip, Mr Mustafa added.

“The idea here is that we are determined to reintegrate all institutions in Gaza and the West Bank, whether it's security or government agencies and ministries,” he said.

Mr Abdelatty said the security arrangements are part of a wider plan for the future of governance in Gaza. The current plan is for a temporary administrative committee made up of 15 independent Gazan technocrats who are not affiliated to factions who will run the enclave for six months, with “the full co-operation and control of the Palestinian government”.

“During this six-month period, the Palestinian Authority will be empowered in order to be fully deployed in Gaza to run it from a security point of view, from the daily life point of view, from everything related to governing Gaza,” he said.

Post-ceasefire conference

Gaza's future is all contingent on an elusive ceasefire agreement to end the violence in the strip that restarted last month after a previous deal brokered in January collapsed.

A two-day conference to be held in Cairo held in co-operation with the UN will help to determine the reconstruction of Gaza and its future governance and security structures, Mr Abdelatty said.

The conference will flesh out and begin to put into action a $53 billion reconstruction plan proposed by Egypt and backed by Arab and Muslim countries, as well as European nations, to provide a credible alternative to calls from US President Donald Trump for his country to take over the strip and for Palestinians to be displaced to Jordan and Egypt. Arab and Muslim countries, as well as many European partners, have firmly rejected that plan.

A joint statement from the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the UK at the time said the Arab plan showed a, “realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza”.

The first day of the post-ceasefire conference will consist of four workshops focusing on the role of the private sector, governance and security, early recovery, and financing instruments under World Bank and UN umbrellas.

The early recovery stage is “urgent phase, to allow Palestinians to stay in their homeland by providing temporary housing units and drinking water, sewerage and other basic services”, Mr Abdelatty said.

The second day will be a “high-level segment” to define the contours of early recovery and a reconstruction plan for the strip, where the war has caused billions of dollars in damage. It will take place in co-operation with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and the UN, “to move forward and make the reconstruction plan applicable on the ground”.

The whole plan is focused on enabling Gazans “to stay in their homes”, the Egyptian Foreign Minister. “There is no legal or moral or whatever justification to push them out of their homeland.”

The Arab reconstruction proposal for Gaza is “the only plan in town”, Mr Mustafa told journalists on the sidelines of the Antalya forum. Countries who have not officially endorsed it are focusing first on securing a ceasefire deal.

“I think some countries, including the US, are focused completely on the issue of the ceasefire now. The ceasefire is important because it is a prerequisite for reconstruction,” he said. “I am convinced that after we deal with the issue of a ceasefire, the ground will be better set for launching reconstruction.”

The need for a ceasefire

None of the future planning can happen until there is a cessation of hostilities in Gaza. “We will have this conference as soon as we have a ceasefire,’” Mr Abdelatty said.

Mr Mustafa told journalists that mediators had conveyed to him that there are prospects for a new ceasefire agreement – currently being negotiated between Israel and Hamas by US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators – but that Israel continues to make new, unspecified demands. Mr Mustafa is not directly involved in the ceasefire talks.

“They are not really helping the situation, but let’s hope that this will change quickly – in politics, you know things can change quickly,” he said. “We have reason to believe that in the end, wisdom will prevail.”

He said that the current ceasefire proposal involves “an extension of 50 days, or 40 days or 60 days, depending on what the deal is going to be, but for the time being it is temporary until, they go to the second phase where more concrete ideas about the future will hopefully take place”.

The mediators were “very serious” in their task and “working very hard”, he said.

“I also see their frustration because they are working so hard and it’s not producing the results they were hoping for.”

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