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The idea of deploying a protective or peacekeeping force in Palestine is nothing new. After Israel was established through the horrendous massacres and mass ethnic cleansing of 1948, the United Nations set up its Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) to observe the implementation of the 1949 Israel-Arab Armistice Agreements. In 1974, it sent the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to support the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, and in 1978, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was deployed on Lebanese territory. None of these forces was able to stop Israeli aggression.
After the Israeli reinvasion of the occupied West Bank and the massacre in Jenin in 2002, former United States President Bill Clinton reawakened the idea of an international force in the occupied Palestinian territory.
With the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023, this proposal started getting diplomatic traction again. In May 2024, the Arab League called for a peacekeeping force for the occupied Palestinian territory. The likes of the Atlantic Council supported the idea, and so did various Western officials, including Germany’s genocidal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
In July this year, a high-level conference led by France and Saudi Arabia also suggested an “international stabilisation mission” in Gaza, premised on an invitation by the Palestinian Authority. The idea was refloated following the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) much-belated proclamation of famine in Gaza.
Undoubtedly, such an intervention, armed or unarmed, would not only be legal under international law but would also be a way to comply with the international legal principle of responsibility to protect. The key question, however, is: How would such a protection force work in real life?
Looking at the geopolitical reality, it is hard to imagine it could work without Israeli agreement. Israel enjoys full, unconditional support from the US and acts with impunity. It has already demonstrated that it would act aggressively against any attempt to break the siege on Gaza; it has gone as far as breaching European Union airspace to attack a Gaza-bound humanitarian vessel. Any protection force attempting to enter Palestine without Israeli agreement would be attacked before it could get even close.
Therefore, the only option is for Israel and the US to agree to it. That is possible, but it would take place under their conditions, which would most likely lead to the internationalisation and normalisation of the genocide.
The first step in that direction has already been taken with the deployment of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at the end of May. Since then, Israel and GHF mercenaries have killed at least 2,416 Palestinians seeking aid and injured more than 17,700.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, has called it “an abomination” and “a death trap costing more lives than it saves”. UN experts have denounced “the entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous nongovernmental entities”. The UN emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, has denounced the GHF’s operations as a dangerous and “deliberate attempt to weaponise aid”.
The recent revelations by The Washington Post that US President Donald Trump’s plan to transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is still on the table give an indication of how the protection force could become a reality.
The plan, called Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (GREAT), would see a foreign force deployed as part of the 10-year US-sponsored trusteeship over the Gaza Strip. The contingent would be formed by private contractors hired by the GHF, while the Israeli army would be responsible for “overall security”. This would effectively mean the continuation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the supervision of foreign mercenaries.
This is certainly not the type of protective force that pro-Palestinian proponents of the idea would like to see, but it is the only one realistically possible as of now.
We are all longing for the genocide to stop and for Palestinians to be protected from Israeli aggression until its regime of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation ends. A protective force should have been deployed a long time ago – when the Zionist movement first started its genocidal project in Palestine in 1947.
Today, promoting the idea of a protective force not only opens the way for the realisation of the Trump plan, but also distracts from the most strategic and impactful form of intervention: ending international complicity and imposing sanctions on Israel. This is what is possible and real. This is what states willing to protect Palestinians and defend our rights and international law must do and can do, without depending on any other actor.
Twenty years ago, we started the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the path towards sanctions. Now we are on the verge of seeing the sanctions become real and impactful.
Last year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution committing member states to partial sanctions on Israel. If we can implement it, this will effectively undercut Israel’s capacity to continue to feed its genocide machine.
Meanwhile, the BDS action is taking effect. We are starting to be able to interfere with the supply chain of the genocide. We have stopped some steel shipments and military supplies from reaching Israeli buyers.
In August, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a second decree banning coal exports to Israel. Shortly after, Turkiye announced a complete stop to all commercial ties and the closure of its seaports and airspace to Israeli vessels and aircraft; the country used to be Israel’s fifth-largest import partner.
Israeli businessmen are admitting to local media that “a reality of a quiet boycott of Israel in the field of imports has been taking shape from suppliers in Europe, and especially from neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt”.
Should South Africa, Brazil, and Nigeria stop supplying energy to fuel Israel, this would have a huge short-term impact. China could stop its companies from operating the port of Haifa. The Global South has the power alone to stop the global supply chain of genocide by blocking the continuous flow of raw materials and components.
Even in Europe, some ties of complicity are starting to get loose. In the Netherlands, five ministers, including the foreign minister and the deputy prime minister, resigned after the cabinet was not able to agree on sanctions against Israel, plunging the government into crisis. Slovenia and Spain have announced arms embargoes. Workers’ mobilisations in ports across the Mediterranean and beyond have made maritime transfers of military materiel to Israel ever more difficult.
Popular pressure is mounting on governments to meet their legal and moral obligations and impose sanctions on Israel. This is not the time to push for impossible or insidious projects that could give them an excuse not to act.
We all saw how genocidal Israel shredded the Oslo plans for a two-state solution to pieces. Those accords were never more than an effort to make Europe, in particular, feel better about its role in our dispossession.
Let us not fall into the same trap again by supporting initiatives that would only make the world feel better about Israel’s genocide. Concrete pressure and sanctions remain the most effective measures at hand that the US-Israel axis cannot manipulate as much.
Let us strengthen concrete global multilateral initiatives in support of Palestine and international law, such as The Hague Group. Let us pressure states to implement sanctions and cut off the supply chain for the genocide.
The pressure must be sustained until apartheid and settler colonialism are dismantled between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
