U.S. Secretary of State: The United States Is Not Looking to Administer Gaza Strip

SadaNews - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States is not looking to administer the Gaza Strip, and that the agreement is based on transferring the management of the sector to a Palestinian civilian authority, noting that this requires time.

He continued: "The Israelis do not want to govern Gaza, we do not want to govern Gaza, and no country in the Middle East wants to govern Gaza," indicating that it requires time to build these capacities, and during the transitional period, security must be provided.

Rubio expressed optimism that the UN Security Council will issue a decision regarding Gaza that supports the deployment of an international security force.

He told reporters after a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Canada, "We feel optimistic, I think we are making good progress in formulating the decision, and we hope to take action on it very soon."

The U.S. Secretary of State added that the United States is speaking with various countries about ways to "balance its interests here and how to organize that beyond the security force."

The multinational force - which is likely to include troops from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the UAE - is part of President Donald Trump’s plan to halt the war in Gaza.

The United States began last week to circulate a draft resolution aimed at monitoring the ceasefire in Gaza, which Trump pressured to be finalized.

Rubio considers that deploying an international force in the Palestinian sector is crucial to allow more aid to enter and to marginalize Hamas.

He said, "If you really want to see a significant improvement - not only in humanitarian aid, but in reconstruction - you will need security."

According to the first phase of the ceasefire agreement reached last month through international mediation, the entire city of Rafah is now behind what is known as the "Yellow Line," which is an area under the control of the Israeli occupation army, including areas that still have active resistance tunnels, as it is estimated that between 150 and 200 fighters are present there according to Israeli estimates.

The issue of trapped fighters resurfaced on the 19th and 29th of last month following "two security incidents" in which 3 Israeli soldiers were killed, prompting the occupation army to respond with widespread and violent shelling that targeted various areas of the sector, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of nearly 300 Palestinians.

In light of these developments, Israeli officials insisted that Hamas fighters have two options: surrender or death, which negatively impacted the transfer of the bodies of the killed Israeli prisoners and led to delays on more than one occasion.

For its part, Hamas informed the mediators guarantying the Gaza agreement that it is ready to extricate the fighters, but confirmed that "surrender is not an option in its dictionary," warning of escalation if the occupation forces attempted to invade the sites of its fighters.

In a related context, media reports indicated American attempts to contain the crisis, as U.S. envoy Jared Kushner requested the Israelis to allow the fighters in Rafah to move to an area controlled by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli Broadcasting Authority.