JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a planned international force in Gaza to help secure a fragile ceasefire under US President Donald Trump’s plan.
It remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops, in part given the refusal of Palestinian Hamas militants to disarm as called for by the plan, while Israel has voiced concerns about the make-up of the force.
While the Trump administration has ruled out sending US soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Azerbaijan to contribute to the multinational force.
“We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate,” Netanyahu said.
“This is, of course, acceptable to the United States as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” he told a session of his cabinet.
Israel, which besieged Gaza for two years to back up its air and ground war in the enclave against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group’s cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, continues to control all access to the territory.
Israel opposed to Turkish role in Gaza force
Last week Netanyahu hinted that he would be opposed to any role for Turkish security forces in Gaza. Once-warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign in the small Palestinian enclave.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a visit to Israel aimed at shoring up the truce, said on Friday the international force would have to be made up of “countries that Israel’s comfortable with.” He made no comment on Turkish involvement.
Rubio added that Gaza’s future governance still needed to be worked out among Israel and partner nations but could not include Hamas.
Rubio later said US officials were receiving input on a possible UN resolution or international agreement to authorize the multinational force in Gaza and would discuss the issue in Qatar, a key Gulf mediator on Gaza, on Sunday.
A major challenge to Trump’s plan is that Hamas has balked at disarming. Since the ceasefire took hold two weeks ago as the first stage of Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas has waged a violent crackdown on clans that have tested its grip on power.
Israel says Hamas knows where hostage remains are
At the same time, the remains of 13 deceased hostages remain in Gaza with Hamas citing obstacles to locating them in the pervasive rubble left by the fighting.
An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday Hamas, which released the remaining 20 living hostages it took in its October 2023 assault, knew where the bodies were.
“Israel is aware that Hamas knows where our deceased hostages are, in fact, located. If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said.
Israel had, however, allowed the entry of an Egyptian technical team to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies. She said the team would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the so-called yellow line in Gaza behind which Israeli troops have initially pulled back under Trump’s plan.
Netanyahu began the cabinet session by stressing Israel was an independent country, rejecting the notion that “the American administration controls me and dictates Israel’s security policy.” Israel and the US, he said, are a “partnership.”
Diplomats and analysts say Trump managed to push Netanyahu, who had long rejected global pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza, to accept his framework for a broader peace deal and also forced Netanyahu to call Qatar’s leader to apologize after a failed bombing raid targeting Hamas negotiators in that country.
Trump also persuaded Arab states to convince Hamas to return all the Israeli hostages, its key leverage in the war.
Netanyahu says Israel to decide which foreign troops acceptable to secure Gaza truce
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Netanyahu says Israel to decide which foreign troops acceptable to secure Gaza truce
- Trump administration has been speaking to Indonesia,UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Azerbaijan to contribute to the multinational force
Israel bars Al-Aqsa imam from entering mosque in Ramadan
- ‘This ban is a grave matter for us as our soul is tied to Al-Aqsa, Al-Aqsa is our life’
JERUSALEM: A senior imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem said on Tuesday that Israeli authorities had barred him from entering the compound, just days before the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
“I have been barred from the mosque for a week, and the order can be renewed,” Sheikh Muhammad Al-Abbasi said.
He said he was not informed of the reason for the ban, which came into effect from Monday.
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A Waqf source said 33 of its employees had been barred from entering the compound in the week leading up to Ramadan.
“I had only returned to Al-Aqsa a month ago after spending a year in the hospital following a serious car accident,” Abbasi said. “This ban is a grave matter for us, as our soul is tied to Al-Aqsa. Al-Aqsa is our life.”
On Monday, Israeli police said they had recommended issuing 10,000 permits for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, who require special permission to enter Jerusalem.
Arad Braverman, a senior Israeli police officer in occupied Jerusalem, said forces would be deployed “day and night” across the compound.
He said thousands of police would also be on duty for Friday prayers, which draw the largest crowds of Muslim worshippers.
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said it had been informed that permits would again be restricted to men over 55 and women over 50, mirroring last year’s criteria.
It added that Israeli authorities had prevented the Islamic Waqf — the Jordanian-run body that administers the site — from carrying out routine preparations, including installing shade structures and setting up temporary medical clinics.
A Waqf source said 33 of its employees had been barred from entering the compound in the week leading up to Ramadan.
Under long-standing arrangements, Jews may visit the Al-Aqsa compound — but they are not permitted to pray there.
Palestinians fear the status quo it is being eroded.
In a separate development, Israeli NGOs have raised the alarm over a settlement plan signed by the government which they say would mark the first expansion of Jerusalem’s borders into the occupied West Bank since 1967. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The proposal, published in early February but reported by Israeli media only on Monday, comes as international outrage mounts over creeping measures aimed at strengthening Israeli control over the West Bank.
Critics say these actions by the Israeli authorities are aimed at the de facto annexation of the Palestinian territory.
The planned development, announced by Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing, is formally a westward expansion of the Geva Binyamin, or Adam, settlement situated northeast of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
In a statement, the ministry said the development agreement included the construction of around 2,780 housing units for the settlement, with an investment of roughly $38.7 million.
But the area to be developed lies on the Jerusalem side of the separation barrier built by Israel in the early 2000s, while Geva Binyamin sits on the West Bank side of the barrier, and the two are separated by a road.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said there would be no “territorial or functional connection” between the area to be developed and the settlement.
“The new neighborhood will be integral to the city of Jerusalem,” Lior Amihai, Peace Now’s executive director, said.
“What is unique about that one is that it will be connected directly to Jerusalem, but it will be beyond the annexed municipal border. So it will be in complete West Bank territory, but just adjacent to Jerusalem,” he said.
