The White House wants to recruit organised crime and drug-dealing gangs to form the new Gaza police force, the UK’s Telegraph reports.
Donald Trump’s administration has presented plans for a new security force heavily staffed by members of existing anti-Hamas armed militias, according to multiple Western officials.
Israel, which is understood to back the US proposals, has armed and actively supported some of the clans since the Gaza war began with the October 7, 2023 attacks.
However, the notion of using some of their members to form part of a US-backed peace force has triggered “pushback” from senior American commanders.
The armed clans in Gaza, which are formed along family lines, have documented links to organised crime going back decades.
Civilians in the enclave deeply mistrust them.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is central to the administration’s drive to push forward the 20-point plan for peace.
Kushner has been working closely with Aryeh Lightstone, chief executive of the Abraham Accords Institute, who is said to be ideologically aligned to the Israeli position on security and opposition to a Palestinian state, according to sources.
Lightstone co-ordinates much of the informal planning on the future of Gaza from a beachfront hotel in Tel Aviv, including discussions with billionaire investors, leading one source to call the discussion group the “Hilton club”.
The source says the plan to recruit the new police force from the clans emerged before Christmas, prompting disagreement at the multi-national new Civil-Military Co-ordination Centre in southern Israel.
Writer Henry Bodkin said that it is not currently known which clans US and Israeli figures proposed hiring from for the new Gaza police force.
The White House did not deny that it had proposed this approach.
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US ‘wants crime gangs to form police force’
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