US President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ is reportedly set to be announced before the year’s end. This news coincides with increasing reports that the US administration is serious about pushing forward the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

However, many critical questions remain unanswered. How can a governing council be superimposed on Gaza when Palestinians are unified in their rejection of any new form of Western mandate over their lives?

Furthermore, how can the proposed ‘International Stabilization Force’ (ISF) operate in Gaza without total clarity regarding its mission? If the ISF ends up serving primarily as an Israeli line of defense, the entire project will collapse before it begins.

Neither Arab nor Muslim countries will seriously engage in subduing Palestinians on behalf of Israel. Any other participating force will inevitably be treated by Palestinians as an occupation force.

The main obstacle, however, is the fact that Israel has never truly respected the first phase of the ceasefire, which began, in theory, on October 10. Since that date, Israeli forces have killed over 360 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more, while demolishing thousands of residential structures, according to satellite images verified by the BBC.

Worse, Israel has habitually bombed targets beyond the ‘Yellow Line’, which was designated as the Palestinian area where humanitarian aid is allowed to flow and people are meant to return to some kind of normalcy, despite Gaza’s near-total........

© Middle East Monitor