U.S. Seeks Help From Arab States to Plan Gaza Governance After War

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his deputies are speaking with their counterparts in Arab states about plans for governing Gaza after Israel finishes its main military operations there, according to people familiar with the early stage conversations.

Officials involved in the brainstorming sessions say it is too early to discuss specifics, and outside analysts don’t see a precise blueprint for administering Gaza as feasible at the moment, but the issue is expected to come up during Blinken’s coming visit to the region.

Blinken will be visiting Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the Israeli government and is expected to make a stop in Jordan. The assistant U.S. secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Barbara Leaf, has been in the region ahead of Blinken’s visit, discussing future plans for Gaza, among other issues.

Officials aware of the early discussions stress that there isn’t yet a plan backed by Washington. One option is a period where Gaza is led by a multinational force from the region.

“The major stakeholders are engaged in these discussions,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “You have to have a credible administrator that can come into Gaza to provide the opportunities for Palestinians.”

Some form of backing from Arab nations is important, officials and analysts say, but coming up with a governance plan in the middle of a ground operation is “like asking about cleaning up after a Category 5 hurricane right as it’s happening,” said Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

The attempt at postwar planning comes as the high civilian death toll from Israel’s air and ground operations in Gaza has deepened the rift between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors. Arab governments are reluctant to get involved in Gaza if the Israel Defense Forces are still conducting sporadic or continuous operations against Hamas.

The aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,400 Israelis—mostly civilians—in October has delayed, if not halted, a multiyear effort to bridge divides between Israel and Arab states. On Wednesday, Jordan recalled its ambassador from Israel in protest of the war in Gaza.

Some Israelis have backed occupying Gaza in the longer term—an option President Biden has rejected—or pushing Gazans to the Sinai region of neighboring Egypt, an idea Egyptian leaders oppose.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the goal is to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and its ability to govern, but added that his country has no interest in permanently reoccupying Gaza.

Yet as Israel’s ground forces move deeper into Gaza, Israeli and U.S. leaders are faced with the question of who will govern the densely populated enclave once Hamas is removed. What that governing authority might look like is unclear.

“At some point, what would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,” Blinken said.

Under current leader Mahmoud Abbas, 87, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the parts of the West Bank not controlled by Israeli forces or settlers, is seen as too weak to administer Gaza in the near term, officials say.

Some analysts say a coalition of Arab-nation or Palestinian officials or Palestinian leaders could oversee Gaza on a temporary basis until the territory is in a better place to elect its own leadership. Involving Arab nations comes with its own hurdles.

“I think the U.S. would need to accept that Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan have to play a key role,” said Tuqa Nusairat, strategy director at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program.

Another possibility would be to persuade Arab states who have signed peace deals or normalization pacts with Israel to provide or oversee a security force for Gaza. But that would require some country or organization to take administrative responsibility and oversee security—essentially an international peacekeeping force.

In general, Arab neighbors are reluctant to take a governing role, fearing it could undermine their long-term goal of an independent Palestinian state. Cairo has also long resisted calls to govern Gaza over concerns it is an excuse to push the territory’s two million inhabitants into Egypt. And Jordan would likely have little interest in participating in a plan that appears at odds with a “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian problem.

“We don’t have answers to what is next in Gaza because none of us know what Gaza is going to look like,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, said last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Blinken brought up the future of Gaza on Monday in a conversation with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, according to a person familiar with the call.

Qatar is a natural choice to play a role in Gaza’s future, given its role as a diplomatic intermediary and in brokering talks with Hamas on issues like hostage release. The oil-rich nation has for years hosted a Hamas political office.

“The Israelis have tried to think of other people than Qatar after Hamas,” said Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Peace.

Yet it isn’t clear that Israeli troops will immediately leave or entirely cease operations, after Hamas is removed from power. Remnants of Hamas, or Palestine Islamic Jihad, another militant group, will likely remain, or others could come in. So whoever steps in to help in Gaza in the immediate future will likely have to coordinate on security with Israel, analysts say, which might be a nonstarter.

The idea of Arab nations providing security forces to stabilize Gaza at the same time Israel is looking to destroy remnants of Hamas is “fantasyland,” said Katulis, who expects the U.S. to back security and political leadership from among more moderate Palestinian groups, potentially the Palestinian Authority. “The early thinking is that it’s some form of an indigenous force,” he said, referring to elements of the Palestinian leadership in Gaza from before Hamas came to power in 2007.

One organization that might struggle to take the lead in Gaza governance is the United Nations, although its agencies are heavily involved in humanitarian efforts.

The U.N. Security Council has been deadlocked over the Gaza issue, one of many divides between the U.S. and Russia, which each have veto power, and Israeli officials have criticized Secretary-General António Guterres and threatened to withhold visas from U.N. workers.

Stephen Kalin and Dov Lieber contributed to this article.

Write to William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com