EU: International force for Gaza will be set up as soon as agreement is made

Saturday December 22, 2007 03:13 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

The Middle East envoy for the European Union (EU), Marc Otte, stated in a meeting with the Palestinian President that an international presence of troops could be mobilized quickly if Israeli and Palestinian authorities can agree to the deployment of such a force in the Gaza Strip.

Marc Otte

Otte added that, while there is some resistance to the idea of an international force – particularly among Palestinians in Gaza, there is "definitely more interest than in the past". Palestinian resistance factions had resisted angrily to the suggestion of an international force when it was announced earlier this week, stating that this would be “replacing one occupation [referring to the Israeli occupation] with another.”

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, made the proposal for an international force deployment during a donors conference held in Paris on Monday, in which 90 countries met to agree on monetary donations to the Palestinian Authority over the coming three years.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas voiced his support for the proposal, as his unelected government has not managed to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government that currently holds power in the Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people in January 2006, the government they formed was not recognized by the U.S. and Israel, who chose instead to recognize the unelected government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

And on the Israeli side, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke endearingly of the Israeli-supported unelected government of Mahmoud Abbas, but added that Israel would be in favor of NATO (North American Treaty Organization) involvement. "We are now in a process that is expected to strengthen the capabilities of the Palestinian Authority - so they would fight terror instead of Israel," Livni said. "However, one cannot exclude the possibility that we will need to discuss what can be the role of NATO in supporting the need for a change, a real change, on the ground."

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