The United States is sending up to 200 troops to Israel to monitor the ceasefire transition process with Gaza and ensure the terms of phase one of the 20-point deal are implemented, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Following the news that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of the deal, brokered by President Donald Trump, the U.S. began implementing a plan to establish a central coordination center where soldiers from the U.S. and other nations could oversee the ceasefire process.
Worldwide, the ceasefire agreement has been welcomed, with nations hopeful to bring an end to the two-year-long conflict. But with tensions still high between Israel and Hamas, the first phase will require precise and careful execution with multinational oversight.
The American troops, led by Admiral Brad Cooper, will join soldiers from neighboring countries in the region, including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Officials said some of the U.S. troops were already in Israel and the rest were expected to be there soon. A second official confirmed no U.S. troops would be sent to Gaza.
The U.S. troops headed to Israel have been deliberately chosen for their expertise in military planning and logisitcs, security, transportation, and engineering.
They are from U.S. Central Command, the military organization responsible for defending and promoting U.S. interests across the globe. Some are already based in the Middle East, others are coming from other parts of the globe.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that a Fox News assertion that“US troops headed to Israel to support historic peace deal” was “not true” because troops are “already stationed at [Central Command].”
While some are stationed in the Middle East, officials said service members were arriving in the region from around the world and were expected to travel throughout the region over the weekend to assist in planning and establishing a “Civil-Military Coordination Center” in Israel.
Officials were unsure where exactly the American troops would be based in Israel but said that they were working to determine that by Friday.
It is unclear how long the U.S. plans for the multinational Civil-Military Coordination Center will be established for, but Israel and Hamas have only agreed to the first phase of the deal so far. It’s likely troops will be stationed in the area for a while since the sides will still have to negotiate and confront more difficult points of the deal, such as the future of Gaza’s leadership.
The goal of the Civil Military Coordination Center is to establish a hub for military and political officials, as well as aid experts, to coordinate while implementing the ceasefire deal. That means everything from security support to humanitarian aid.
The first phase of the deal directs Israeli troops to withdraw to a certain point while still controlling more than 50 percent of the Gaza strip and observe a ceasefire. Within 72 hours, Hamas will release the remaining living and deceased hostages to Israel and Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisons.
Meanwhile, hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks are expected to arrive in Gaza to bring necessary resources to Palestinian in dire need of assistance.
Over the course of the two-year-long conflict, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, thousands of them children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Millions of Palestinians have become refugees while fleeing their homes, with much of the enclave destroyed. This past year, global humanitarian groups raised alarm bells at the mass starvation occurring in Gaza.
A United Nations investigation determined that Israel was committed genocide – though Israeli officials refuted the claim.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.
