Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said on Wednesday that lists had been finalised for about 5,000 Palestinian officers to begin training in the country to help fill the security vacuum in a postwar Gaza Strip.
Mr Abdelatty told local broadcaster DMC TV that Egypt was working with Jordan to prepare Palestinian police to manage and administer the war-ravaged enclave after Israel's war.
Cairo will host an international conference for Gaza’s reconstruction, during which Egypt’s vision for administering the strip will be announced, he said.
Despite no major breakthrough in ceasefire talks, there has been increasing speculation on postwar Gaza, with different plans and names circulated in Arab and Israeli media.
Mr Abdelatty said an agreement had been reached on 15 prominent figures from Gaza to administer the enclave in the first six months. The Palestinian Authority was the only legitimate body to do so, he added.
The broader plan for Gaza, adopted by the Arab League during a summit in Cairo in March, is for Hamas to step aside and a technocratic committee to take over for six months.
Samir Hulileh, a US nominee to lead postwar-Gaza, told The National that the civilian transitional rule could last up to a year. “This is a transitional phase which might last for six months or a year and it’s not going to be long,” he said.
Conditions for Mr Hulileh to implement his rule include a comprehensive ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. The matter, currently being discussed in Egypt in co-operation with Qatar and the US, is being complicated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterating plans to reoccupy the enclave and “allow” Palestinians to leave.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu announced that the strip would be governed by a “non-Israeli civilian administration” following the occupation of Gaza city.
This administration would be managed by third parties and “neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”, he said, without providing more detail.
