JERUSALEM: The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-conflict administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The “high-level” consultations have centred around a transitional government headed by a US official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarised and stabilised, and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged, the sources said.

According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a US-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said.

The sources compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Other countries would be invited to take part in the US-led authority in Gaza, the sources said, without identifying which ones. They said the administration would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited authority in the occupied West Bank. The sources said it remained unclear whether any agreement could be reached.

“We want peace, and the immediate release of the hostages,” the spokesperson said, adding that: “The pillars of our approach remain resolute: stand with Israel, stand for peace.” Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, rejected the idea of an administration led by the United States or any foreign government, saying the Palestinian people of Gaza should choose their own rulers.

Israeli strikes kill 48

At least 48 people were killed on Wednesday in Israeli airstrikes on a school that housed families displaced by the conflict and which was located close to a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City, local health authorities said.

Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 33 people, including women and children, medics said.

On another school, which was housing displaced people in Bureij camp in central Gaza, two Israeli airstrikes killed at least 33 people including women and children, on Tuesday, local health authorities said. The strike smashed classrooms, destroyed furniture and left a large crater in the school campus.

Survivors sifted through rubble to look for some of their belongings. “What happened is an earthquake. The Israeli occupation hit a school housing children. They are children,” said eyewitness Ali Al-Shaqra. He said the school housed 300 families.

In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, residents and Hamas sources said Israeli forces, who have taken control of the city, continued to blow up and demolish houses and buildings.

‘Stark’ choice

Countries are at a moral crossroads over the conflict in Gaza, UN experts warned on Wednesday, urging action to halt the violence and avoid “the annihilation of the Palestinian population” in the territory.

A two-month ceasefire in the conflict collapsed in March, with Israel resuming intense strikes and calling up tens of thousands of reservists for an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, several independent United Nations experts warned that countries faced a “stark” choice. “Remain passive and witness the slaughter of innocents or take part in crafting a just resolution,” they said, urging the world to avert the “moral abyss we are descending into”.

The experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said Israel’s actions in Gaza “follow alarming, documented patterns of genocidal conduct”.

Demographic change

Six European countries said on Wednesday that they “firmly reject any demographic or territorial change in Gaza” after Israel announced plans to expand its military offensive in the Palestinian territory.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025