STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The United States is leading an effort to prevent a return to full-scale war in Gaza. They need to find countries willing to send troops to Gaza as a stabilizing force by early next year, and that is a problem because early next year is almost here. And NPR's reporting finds that some of the plans are likely to take many months to get started. NPR's Daniel Estrin is on the line from Tel Aviv. Daniel, hi.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What is the U.S. plan for Gaza?
ESTRIN: Well, first, Hamas has to hand over one last Israeli hostage body, and then Phase 2 of the ceasefire should begin. President Trump says by early next year, they're going to be announcing which world leaders will be sitting with him on a Board of Peace. They would be overseeing a transfer of power in Gaza from Hamas to a committee of Palestinian technocrats who will be ruling Gaza's daily affairs. But then there's the next part, and this is the tricky part. It's all about security. The plan is to send international troops to Gaza to get Hamas to give up its weapons and to get Israeli troops to withdraw from Gaza. A U.S. official told me that the aim is for this international stabilization force to actually be on the ground in Gaza by early 2026.
INSKEEP: OK. That's the aim. So why is that looking less and less likely?
ESTRIN: Well, you have all these countries that they do agree on all the basic elements - having the international force on the ground and disarming Hamas and having Israel leave Gaza - but there is absolutely no agreement on the sequence of when that's going to be happening. And especially when it comes to the international force, what is it supposed to do? The U.S. State Department has some documents that were obtained by NPR, and these documents show that the U.S. does want these international troops to support the disarmament of Hamas. The thing is, many countries simply do not want to send troops to confront Hamas on their weapons. They just want to be a buffer between Hamas and Israel along a border line.
And then there is this other issue, Steve, that the international force is supposed to work alongside about 3,000 Palestinian civil police who are going to be trained by the European Union. But I spoke with a European official who was not authorized to speak to the media, so they requested anonymity, and this official said that the earliest this training would begin for most of these Palestinian police would be April, and then it would take a lot more time for them to actually be trained up. Plus, you need to train judges and prosecutors. You need an actual criminal justice system. Because when you think about this, Hamas controlled every aspect of life in Gaza before the war. Now they're not going to be in charge. So what do you do? Do you build an entirely new legislative system from scratch? What law does the police actually enforce? And that European official told me that the EU has been trying to convince the U.S. that Gaza should just use the existing Palestinian law that it's used in the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank. But there simply are all these fundamentals that are still being debated.
INSKEEP: So many practicalities. So little agreement on how to address them. So what happens if nothing gets going here soon?
ESTRIN: The longer all this lingers, Steve, the longer there's no reconstruction for Palestinians in Gaza, the longer they live in tents in the rain and the cold. And just in the last two months of the ceasefire, officials say hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Several Israeli soldiers have been killed by Palestinian fire. So lives are at stake the longer Gaza remains in this limbo.
INSKEEP: NPR's Daniel Estrin has covered the war in the Middle East and continues covering the efforts at peace. Daniel, thanks so much.
ESTRIN: You're very welcome.
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