The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
The “high-level” consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a US official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarized and stabilized, and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged, the sources said.
According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a US-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.
Other countries would be invited to take part in the US-led authority in Gaza, the sources said, without identifying which ones.
They said the administration would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude the Hamas movement and the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited authority in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, sparked the current war when its fighters stormed into southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing another 251.
The sources said it remained unclear whether any agreement could be reached. Discussions had not progressed to the point of considering who might take on core roles, they said.
The sources did not specify which side had put forward the proposal nor provide further details of the talks.
In response to Reuters questions, a State Department spokesperson did not comment directly on whether there had been discussions with Israel about a US-led provisional authority in Gaza, saying they could not speak to ongoing negotiations.
“We want peace, and the immediate release of the hostages,” the spokesperson said, adding that: “The pillars of our approach remain resolute: stand with Israel, stand for peace.”
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment.
According to Reuters, a US-led provisional authority in Gaza would draw Washington deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mark its biggest Middle East intervention since the Iraq invasion.
Such a move would carry significant risks of a backlash from both allies and adversaries in the Middle East, if Washington were perceived as an occupying power in Gaza, two of the sources said.
Israel's leadership, including Netanyahu, firmly rejects any role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority, which it accuses of being anti-Israeli. Netanyahu also opposes Palestinian sovereignty.
Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would expand its attacks in Gaza and that more Gazans would be moved “for their own safety.”
Israel is still seeking to recover 59 hostages being held in the enclave. Its offensive has so far killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry data.
Some members of Netanyahu's right-coalition have called publicly for what they describe as the “voluntary” mass migration of Palestinians from Gaza and for the reconstruction of Jewish settlements inside the coastal enclave.
But behind closed doors, some Israeli officials have also been weighing proposals over the future of Gaza that sources say assumes that there won't be a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza, such as the US-led provisional administration.
Among those include restricting reconstruction to designated security zones, dividing the territory and establishing permanent military bases, said four sources, who include foreign diplomats and former Israeli officials briefed on the proposals.
