Gaza peace force needs 'legitimacy': UN

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that any stabilization force in Gaza "must have the legitimacy of a mandate from the (UN) Security Council", and that the ceasefire must lead to the two-state solution and the recognition of an independent State of Palestine.

Guterres made the remarks in an interview with Al Jazeera, which was published on Wednesday. A similar push was seen this week when foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim-majority countries met in Istanbul.

The ministers reiterated their support for Palestinians governing their own state as they pondered the establishment of a global peace force in Gaza. Some Arab countries, wary of sending their own troops to Gaza, agreed that an international stabilization force needs to have a UN Security Council mandate to be effective.

It is important that the force has full legitimacy, whose source is a mandate from the UN. The body of the UN that has the power to provide these mandates is the Security Council, Guterres told Al Jazeera.

The UN chief lamented that with the right of veto of superpowers that are sometimes directly involved in the conflicts, the UN Security Council has shown an enormous lack of capacity "to deal effectively with the crises we are facing".

Since Oct 7, 2023, the United States has vetoed five other resolutions calling for a ceasefire, most recently in June this year.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said on Tuesday that approval of the proposed plan to establish an international force in Gaza through the Security Council, as suggested by the US, would be difficult to achieve, as Washington and Israel were not in favor of such a force being established under a UN mandate.

He also said it is unacceptable to have a military force that serves as a substitute for the Israeli army in Gaza. The Hamas official alleged that Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement more than 190 times since it came into effect three weeks ago.

Eight Palestinian factions, led by Hamas, will meet in a few days in Cairo to discuss forming a transitional administration for the Gaza Strip, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing Arab and Palestinian officials.

Belal Alakhras, a research fellow at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, told China Daily that while the ceasefire is fragile, the priority "must be its stabilization and the commencement of reconstruction to build a foundation for regional stability, rather than imposing a troubling international intervention".

"Invoking the Security Council to legitimize a framework that bypasses Palestinian rights, particularly after its mandate to stop the war was repeatedly vetoed, sets a dangerous precedent, and this represents an attempt to supersede the entire framework of international law with a new reality created by force," said Alakhras.

He also said that the international community, having failed to secure basic humanitarian access, "should now focus on a constructive role in recovery, not allowing a renewal of suffering".

"The most dangerous aspect of this approach would be the global precedent it sets for impunity, wherein mass crimes could be committed, and the UN's authority subsequently deployed to ratify the violent outcome. The root problem is political with the lack of long-overdue Palestinian rights, not a security vacuum," said Alakhras.