Rubio says new governance bodies for Gaza will be in place soon, followed by international force

By Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that a new governance structure for Gaza -- made up of an international board and a group of Palestinian technocrats -- would be in place soon, followed by the deployment of foreign troops, as the U.S. hopes to cement a fragile ceasefire in Israel's war in the Palestinian enclave.

Rubio, speaking at a year-end news conference, said the status quo was not sustainable in Gaza, where Israel has continued to strike Hamas targets while the militant group has reasserted its control since the October peace agreement brokered by President Donald Trump's administration. 

"That's why we have a sense of urgency about bringing phase one to its full completion, which is the establishment of the Board of Peace, and the establishment of the Palestinian technocratic authority or organization that's going to be on the ground, and then the stabilization force comes closely thereafter," Rubio said.

Rubio said progress had been made recently on identifying Palestinians to join the technocratic group, and said Washington was aiming to get the governance bodies in place "very soon," without offering a specific timeline.

Rubio was speaking after U.S. Central Command hosted a conference in Doha this week with partner nations to plan the International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza. Two U.S. officials told Reuters last week that international troops could be deployed in the strip as early as next month, after the U.N. Security Council voted in November to authorize the force.

It remains unclear how Palestinian militant group Hamas will be disarmed and countries considering contributing troops to the ISF are wary that Hamas will engage their soldiers in combat.

Rubio did not specify who would be responsible for disarming Hamas, and conceded that countries contributing troops want to know what the ISF's specific mandate is and how it will be funded. "I think we owe them a few more answers before we can ask anybody to firmly commit, but I feel very confident that we have a number of nation states acceptable to all sides in this who are willing to step forward and be a part of that stabilization force.," Rubio said, noting that Pakistan was among the countries who had expressed interest. 

Establishing security and governance was key to drawing donors to pay for reconstruction in Gaza, Rubio added.

"Who's going to pledge billions of dollars to build things that are going to get blown up again because a war starts?" Rubio said, discussing the possibility of a donor conference to raise reconstruction funds. "They want to know who's in charge, and they want to know that there's security so and that there'll be long term stability." 

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Daniel Wallis)