The report says that Israel’s military think-tank has drafted a paper detailing ‘Hamas-free safe zones’ that could be created in Gaza and managed by an authority backed by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
The article adds that Israel and the US have also floated an idea to expel rank and file Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip, by potentially offering them safe passage.
The idea to give “low-level” fighters in Gaza safe passage out of Israel stems from a 1982 agreement that saw Yasser Arafat and about 11,000 Palestinian fighters belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organization leave Beirut for Tunisia, after Israel laid siege to the city, according to the WSJ.
Israel has announced it doesn’t want the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern the Gaza Strip if and when it defeats Hamas. The US has stressed it wants Gaza and the occupied West Bank to be governed by the PA.
Hamas has vowed that the Palestinian territory would only be ruled by its own people once the war was over.
