An inter-Arab security force should be set up in Gaza within weeks to prevent Hamas from retaking control, Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Barak has said.

Asked by Sky News chief presenter Mark Austin if intervention was necessary to prevent Hamas from filling the current power vacuum inside the Strip, Mr Barak said he believed a force was needed, but it should not be international.

“An inter-Arab force should be there in a few weeks, not several months,” he said, warning that the group’s readiness to give up its arms will decrease over time.

Mr Barak also said the “only condition for success” in the ceasefire plan for Gaza was the “determination” of Donald Trump.

He said there were concerns that the US president “might lose his attention to the issue” and that his plan to bring the war to a conclusion “will take time”.

“It cannot happen overnight. But the zeitgeist, the atmosphere in the world and the pressure on both sides to find a solution is created in front of our eyes. So it’s very promising.”

Follow the latest updates from Gaza

However, he said the war with Hamas over the last few months has harmed Israel’s international reputation, and it would take time to fix that damage.

“It’s killed our positioning in the world,” he said. “It’s huge damage. It will take probably a generation to correct it.

“It created a feeling in the world that Israel probably executed war crimes.”

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According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, nearly 68,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in 2023 – when more than 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people were taken hostage during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

The Hamas-run ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says half of that number were women and children.

The war has also flattened huge swathes of Gaza and left nearly 170,000 people wounded, according to the ministry.

Palestinian state ‘only sustainable’ solution

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “turned Hamas’ military defeat a year ago into an unprecedented diplomatic and political success and brought back the Palestinian issue,” Mr Barak said.

His comments refer to the creation of a Palestinian state, which he said was “the only sustainable” solution.

“Any other solution will break,” Mr Barak said. “And it’s not because we have special sentiments to the lives of the Palestinians, it’s because of our own interests.”

“Israel has a compelling imperative to separate from the Palestinians. If there is only one entity reigning over this whole area, namely Israel, it will become inevitably either non-Jewish or non-democratic.”

Calls for Hamas to disarm

It comes after aid trucks rolled into Gaza following a dispute over the return of the bodies of dead hostages that threatened Israel’s nascent ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Israel has threatened to reduce aid supplies because Hamas was returning bodies too slowly.

The militant group returned four bodies confirmed as dead hostages on Monday, as well as another four late on Tuesday, but Israeli authorities have said one of those bodies was not that of a hostage.

Several other issues are yet to be resolved, with later phases of the truce plan calling for Hamas to disarm and give up power, which it has so far refused to do.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump appeared to threaten Hamas over the issue, telling a press conference: “If Hamas doesn’t disarm, we will disarm them – perhaps violently.”

Meanwhile, Hamas has launched a security crackdown in Gaza, carrying out public executions and clashing with local clans.

Two things can be true at the same time – an adage so apt for the past day. 

This was the Trump show. There’s no question about that. It was a show called by him, pulled off for him, attended by leaders who had no other choice and all because he craves the ego boost.

Gaza deal signed – as it happened

But the day was also an unquestionable and game-changing geopolitical achievement.

Trump stopped the war, he stopped the killing, he forced Hamas to release all the hostages, he demanded Israel to free prisoners held without any judicial process, he enabled aid to be delivered to Gaza, and he committed everyone to a roadmap, of sorts, ahead.

He did all that and more.

He also made the Israel-Palestine conflict, which the world has ignored for decades, a cause that European and Middle Eastern nations are now committed to invest in. No one, it seems, can ignore Trump.

Love him or loathe him, those are remarkable achievements.

‘Focus of a goldfish’

The key question now is – will he stay the course?

One person central to the negotiations which have led us to this point said to me last week that Trump has the “focus of a goldfish”.

It’s true that he tends to have a short attention span. If things are not going his way, and it looks likely that he won’t turn out to be the winner, he quickly moves on and blames someone else.

So, is there a danger of that with this? Let’s check in on it all six months from now (I am willing to be proved wrong – the Trump-show is truly hard to chart), but my judgement right now is that he will stay the course with this one for several reasons.

First, precisely because of the show he has created around this. Surely, he won’t want it all to fall apart now?

He has invested so much personal reputation in all this, I’d argue that even he wouldn’t want to drop it, even when the going gets tough – which it will.

Second, the Abraham Accords. They represented his signature foreign policy achievement in his first term – the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Muslim world.

Back in his first presidency, he tried to push the accords through without solving the Palestinian question. It didn’t work.

This time, he’s grasped the nettle. Now he wants to bring it all together in a grand bargain. He’s doing it for peace but also, of course, for the business opportunities – to help “make America great again”.

Peace – and prosperity – in the Middle East is good for America. It’s also good for Trump Inc. He and his family are going to get even richer from a prosperous Middle East.

Read more:
Trump hails ‘peace in the Middle East’
His team ripped up golden rule to pull off peace plan

Then there is the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t win it this year. He was never going to – nominations had to be in by January.

But next year he really could win – especially if he solves the Ukraine challenge too.

If he could bring his coexistence and unity vibe to his own country – rather than stoking the division – he may stand an even greater chance of winning.

A freed Palestinian prisoner, one of about 1,700 detainees from Gaza who had been held by Israel without charge, has described scenes of systematic torture, humiliation and death inside Israeli detention.

Akram al Basyouni, 45, from northern Gaza, says he was detained on 10 December 2023 at a shelter school in Jabalia and spent nearly two years in custody, including at the Sde Teiman military base.

“Many of our fellow prisoners were beaten to the point of death,” he told Sky News. “When we cried out to the guards for help, they would answer coldly, ‘Let him die’. Five minutes later they would take the body away, wrap it in a bag, and shut the door.”

Al Basyouni said detainees were routinely tortured, beaten with batons and fists, attacked by dogs and gassed during what guards called a “reception ceremony”.

“They beat us so savagely our ribs were shattered. They poured boiling water over the faces and backs of young men until their skin peeled away. We sat on cold metal floors for days, punished even for asking for help.”

Sky News has contacted the Israel Prison Service (IPS) and the Israel Defense Forces for comment but has not yet received a response.

Al Basyouni claimed prisoners were forced to remain on their knees for long hours, deprived of clothing and blankets, and subjected to religious and psychological abuse.

“They cursed the Prophet, tore up the Koran in front of us, and insulted our mothers and sisters in the foulest language,” he said. “They told us our families were dead. ‘There is no Gaza,’ they said. ‘We killed your children.'”

Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons in past exchanges have reported frequent beatings, insufficient food and deprivation of medical care.

A 2024 UN report said that since 7 October 2023, thousands of Palestinians have been held arbitrarily and incommunicado by Israel, often shackled, subject to torture and deprived of food, water, sleep and medical care.

Israel has maintained that it follows international and domestic legal standards for the treatment of prisoners and that any prison personnel violations are investigated.

Its National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the country’s prisons, has on multiple occasions boasted about making conditions for Palestinians as harsh as possible while remaining within the law.

Al Basyouni claimed many detainees, including doctors, died from beatings or medical neglect.

“I heard about Dr Adnan al-Bursh, may God have mercy on him,” he said. “He was struck in the chest by a prison guard, over his heart. He lost consciousness immediately and died five minutes later.”

Read more from Sky News:
Trump warned his plan for Gaza ‘doesn’t make sense’
Hamas official says Blair isn’t welcome in Gaza role

Sky News’ own investigation found that Dr al-Bursh, one of Gaza’s most respected surgeons, died after being tortured in Israeli custody, sustaining broken ribs and severe injuries while being held at Ofer Prison.

Al Basyouni said he also met Dr Hossam Abu Safiya at Ofer and heard that Dr Akram Abu Ouda had been “subjected to severe and repeated torture.”

“Even the doctors were beaten and denied treatment,” he said. “Many reached the brink of death.”

In response to our investigation into Dr al-Bursh’s death, a spokesman for the Israel Prison Service said at the time: “We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.”