Palestinians sift through destroyed shelters at a UNRWA school housing displaced people, following an Israeli strike in the Bureij refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip. AFP
The report said that five people familiar with the matter told Reuters that "high-level" consultations have centred around a transitional government headed by a US official overseeing 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 told Reuters.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the talks publicly, 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.
Many Iraqis perceived the authority as an occupying force, and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.
Other countries would be invited to participate 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 Islamist group Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited authority in the occupied West Bank.
The sources told Reuters it remained unclear whether any agreement could be reached. Discussions had not progressed to considering who might take on core roles.
The sources did not specify to Reuters which side had put forward the proposal, nor provide further details of the talks.
In response to Reuters' questions, a State Department spokesperson did not comment directly on whether there had been discussions with Israel about a US-led provisional authority in Gaza, saying they could not speak to ongoing negotiations.
"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."
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment.
In an April interview with Emirati-owned Sky News Arabia, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he believed there would be a "transitional period" after the conflict in which an international board of trustees, including "moderate Arab countries", would oversee Gaza with Palestinians operating under their guidance.
"We're not looking to control the civil life of the people in Gaza. Our sole interest in the Gaza Strip is security," he said, without naming which countries he believed would be involved. The foreign ministry did not respond to a request for further comment.
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 rulers.
According to Reuters, the Palestinian Authority did not respond to a request for comment.
A US-led provisional authority in Gaza would draw Washington deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mark its most significant Middle East intervention since the Iraq invasion.
Such a move would carry significant risks of a backlash from both allies and adversaries in the Middle East, if Washington were perceived as an occupying power in Gaza, two of the sources said to Reuters.
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