The need for "--force" when pushing is due to you having rebased the
branch, it is unrelated to the existence of REBASE_HEAD (other than the
fact that it exists indicates you have rebased). Rebasing rewrites the
history which means that the remote cannot fast-forward when you push.
Rather than using "--force" I'd recommend "--force-with-lease --force-
if-includes" instead (see the "git push" man page for more details).
I know it, commit don't the same that was before rebase - because of the
conflict, it had to be changed.