The US said it is sending 200 troops to “monitor” the ceasefire deal in Gaza, which is widely believed to be the first step in building an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to bring calm to the besieged Palestinian territory.
The ISF is part of clause 15 of Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, which stipulates the United States will collaborate with Arab and international partners to establish a temporary force in Gaza to train Palestinian police, secure borders and support reconstruction, while serving as a “long-term internal security solution”.
But there are conflicting reports on where the troops will be deployed, with suggestions they will be sent to Egypt or Israel, while experts have cast doubt over how they will oversee the implementation of the deal.
“As is often the case with the Trump White House, the details are somewhat vague,” Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) and an expert in Middle East affairs, told The Independent. “What exactly will these 200 US troops be deployed for?”
US officials told American media that the US Central Command, led by Admiral Brad Cooper, will establish a civil-military coordination centre in Israel to provide security and humanitarian support.
The US troops who have expertise in transportation, planning, security, logistics and engineering will join soldiers from nations in the region, including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the UAE.
Israeli media, citing US officials, reported that the troops are intended to “help create the joint control centre and then integrate all the other security forces that will be going in there to deconflict with the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces)”. A source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that they will likely be stationed in Egypt.
One statement that has stayed consistent in the reports is that no US troops will be sent into Gaza.
The Israeli-based centre will coordinate humanitarian aid, logistics and communication among countries and organisations involved in Gaza’s reconstruction and security, according to reports.
But it remains unclear how the centre would operate given that Israel has no formal diplomatic ties with Qatar and relations with Turkey, Egypt and the UAE are complex.
The US has been criticised over its previous attempts to get aid into Gaza, with high-profile announcements and costly initiatives that aid agencies argue have done little to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians.
This includes the $230m floating pier in Gaza, established under the previous Biden administration, which fell apart in rough seas and storms. It was a huge endeavour that took about 1,000 US troops to execute, but it was dismantled in July last year after just 20 days in operation.
Aid groups also criticised the US military and others for airdropping aid into Gaza, saying it was insufficient to meet the scale of need and was a mere symbolic gesture at best. They also warned that airdrops posed a danger to civilians on the ground, who would often rush toward the falling packages.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organisation created by Israel in February with US support to distribute aid in Gaza, was accused of causing mass casualties, as desperate Palestinians were killed by gunfire, overcrowding and stampedes at its distribution centres.
The GHF was described by UN experts as “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”.
“The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices,” the UN experts warned in August.
Mr Doyle described these attempts to get aid into Gaza as “fig leaf operations”, saying: “The Israelis should have had the borders open, that was the only way to deliver aid at scale, not via a dangerous pier and dangerous airdrops.”
He was equally critical of the ceasefire plan declared this week, and the subsequent announcement that 200 US troops will be sent to oversee it.
When asked whether the plan offered any guarantees of stability in Gaza, he responded: “No, none, nothing.”
“US troops are not neutral actors,” he added. “The US is a party to this conflict, given that it has contributed so much military aid to Israel.
“I think aid agencies will have an issue – as they had an issue with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – with anything that would look like it would compromise their neutrality and independence. I think there’s going to be an aversion to anything that looks like militarised, securitised aid.”
Aid organisations have cautiously welcomed the news that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of the Gaza peace plan. Since October 2023, access to humanitarian aid has been a major challenge, with the process remaining slow and bureaucratic.
“It does not mark the end of the suffering,” a spokesperson from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said of the ceasefire agreement.
“While access to humanitarian assistance must never be contingent on a peace agreement, any ceasefire must be followed by an urgent and massive scale up of humanitarian aid to address the overwhelming medical, psychological, and material needs across a devastated Gaza.”
