Jordan doubts Israel can destroy Hamas as Gaza war rages

[November 18, 2023]  By Alexander Cornwell and Andrew Gray

MANAMA (Reuters) - Jordan's foreign minister voiced doubt on Saturday that Israel could reach its goal of obliterating Hamas with its heavy bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip long dominated by the Palestinian Islamist movement.

"Israel says it wants to wipe out Hamas. There's a lot of military people here, I just don't understand how this objective can be realised," Ayman Safadi said at the annual IISS Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.

Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas since its deadly Oct. 7 cross-border rampage into nearby Israeli communities. Israel has bombed much of Gaza City to rubble as it has subdued the north of the enclave and turned to stepping up attacks on Hamas in the south. The majority of dead on both sides - 1,200 Israelis in Hamas's assault and over 12,000 in Gaza - have been civilians.

Regional power Saudi Arabia called at the conference for an immediate Israeli-Hamas ceasefire. "We are seeing civilians dying every day. And we need to end that today, not tomorrow," said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

Israel has ruled out any ceasefire before its 240 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 are freed. Hamas has vowed a long and sustained battle against Israel.
 

Brett McGurk, U.S. President Joe Biden's top adviser on the Middle East, told the Manama conference that the release of hostages held by Hamas would lead to a surge in the delivery of humanitarian aid and a significant pause in fighting in Gaza.

WHO COULD RUN GAZA AFTER WAR?

Israel's blitz of Gaza has raised questions among world and regional powers and the United Nations over who would govern the tiny, densely populated territory in the event of a Hamas defeat in the enclave it has ruled for 16 years.

Only the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Western-backed entity that exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, could run Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war is over, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

"Hamas cannot be in control of Gaza any longer," Borrell told the Manama Dialogue, an annual conference on foreign and security policy. "So who will be in control of Gaza? I think only one could do that - the Palestinian Authority."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the PA could play a role in administering Gaza if there was a full political solution - moves towards Palestinian statehood on lands Israel has occupied since 1967 - that also encompassed the West Bank.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi speaks at the IISS Manama Dialogue in Manama, Bahrain, November 18, 2023. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014. The PA is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, perceived largely as a corrupt security subcontractor for Israel, and Israel is now under a hardline religious-nationalist government.

Hamas took over Gaza after a brief civil war in 2007 with Abbas' Fatah party, and is deeply embedded in Gaza society with political, social and charitable organizations as well. Years of reconciliation talks between the rivals failed to reach a breakthrough for resuming PA administration of Gaza.

A senior official from the United Arab Emirates, which reached a U.S.-brokered normalization accord with Israel in 2020, warned that a drawn-out Gaza conflict could breed radicalization across the wider Middle East.

"The longer the crisis takes, the more danger we have of the crisis spiraling out of control and I think we have to be very, very careful," said Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president.

The UAE and other conservative, oil-producing Gulf Arab states see Hamas and other Islamists as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond.

About two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced by Israel's onslaught. Many of those who have fled fear their homelessness could become permanent.

Safadi warned Jordan would do "whatever it takes to stop" such displacement. "We will never allow that to happen, in addition to it being a war crime, it would be a direct threat to our national security. We'll do whatever it takes to stop it."

Jordan, which shares a border with the West Bank, absorbed the bulk of Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their homes when Israel was created in 1948.

The Gaza war has stirred fears of upheaval in Jordan with officials seeing a risk that Israel could expel Palestinians en masse from the West Bank, where Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have increased since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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