Washington agrees with Israel that the fight against Hamas will take months, but officials are discussing the timetable for scaling back from high-intensity combat to more precise ways of targeting the militant group’s leaders, the top U.S. envoy said.
This comes amid growing American unease about the mounting death toll in Gaza.
In meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday and Friday, Sullivan discussed a timetable for winding down the intense combat phase of the war.
Following talks with Israeli officials, Sullivan met with Abbas to discuss the besieged enclave’s postwar future, which, according to a senior U.S. official, could include bringing back Palestinian security forces driven from their jobs in Gaza by Hamas in its 2007 takeover.
American and Israeli officials have been vague in public about how Gaza will be run if Israel achieves its goal of ending Hamas control.
Abbas lost control of Gaza when Hamas drove out his security forces in 2007.
The takeover came a year after Hamas defeated Abbas’ Fatah party in parliament elections and the rivals failed to form a unity government.
A senior U.S. official said that Sullivan and others have discussed the prospect of having those associated with the Palestinian Authority security forces before the Hamas takeover serve as the “nucleus” of postwar peacekeeping in Gaza.
Any role for Palestinian security forces in Gaza is bound to elicit strong opposition from Israel, which seeks to maintain an open-ended security presence there and says it won’t allow a postwar foothold for the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.
As part of postwar scenarios, Washington has also called for revitalizing the Palestinian Authority, without letting on whether such reforms would require personnel changes or general elections, which last took place 17 years ago.
The 88-year-old Abbas is deeply unpopular, with a poll published Wednesday indicating close to 90% of Palestinians want him to resign.
Meanwhile, Palestinian support for Hamas has tripled in the West Bank, with a small uptick in Gaza, according to the poll. Still, a majority of Palestinians do not back Hamas, according to the survey.
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