President Donald Trump will assign 200 troops already stationed in the Middle East to Israel to help support and monitor the Gaza peace deal, US officials said on Thursday.
The announcement came as Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government formally approved the agreement to return the remaining hostages from Gaza.
A ceasefire will go into effect within 24 hours of the cabinet meeting when Israeli troops will also begin to withdraw from Gaza along an agreed-upon line.
Hamas will release the remaining living and dead Israeli hostages within 72 hours after that. Once they are returned, Israel will free 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans who have been held since October 7.
Trump said earlier he expected to travel to the Middle East on Sunday to celebrate the first phase of the peace deal and be there for the release of hostages by Hamas.
In the first details of how the truce will be enforced, sources revealed that US soldiers will form part of a team that includes allies, NGOs and private sector groups.
US Central Command will establish a ‘civil-military coordination center’ in Israel that will facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance into the war-torn territory, officials told the Associated Press.
The troops will not be sent into Gaza, but will monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and the transition to a civilian government in the territory, a source said.
President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Steve Witkoff (second left) and Jared Kushner (right) in Jerusalem on Thursday
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The coordination center will be staffed by US troops who have expertise in transportation, planning, security, logistics and engineering, said the official.
American soldiers have already started to arrive and further forces will travel to the region over the weekend to begin planning and efforts to establish the center.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian armed group had ‘ended the war in Gaza.’
The US leader added that ‘nobody’s going to be forced to leave’ the Palestinian territory under his 20-point peace plan, which formed the basis for indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel in Egypt.
Netanyahu convened Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday to vote on the deal after Hamas said it would accept and welcomed the end of the two-year war.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner took part in the Israeli government’s meeting.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement: ‘The government has just now approved the framework for the release of all of the hostages – the living and the deceased.’
It came despite fierce opposition from Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right party Jewish Power, had earlier declared he would be voting against the deal and threatened to topple Netanyahu’s coalition if Hamas’s ‘rule was not dismantled.’
‘In conversations held between me and the prime minister in recent days, I made it clear that under no circumstances will I be part of a government that allows the continued existence of Hamas’s rule in Gaza,’ Ben-Gvir said.
‘This is a glaring red line. The prime minister committed to me that this will be the case.’
Trump said he hoped to travel to Israel, where he may address parliament, and maybe to Egypt.
‘The hostages will be coming back Monday or Tuesday. I’ll probably be there, I hope to be there,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
But Trump said that the bodies of some of the dead hostages would be ‘hard to find.’
Hamas took 251 people hostage into Gaza, where 47 remain, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas wants a permanent, comprehensive ceasefire, a complete pullout of Israeli forces
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has devastated the territory and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said earlier that he had invited his US counterpart to take part in a ‘celebration to be held in Egypt’ for the agreement for the first phase of a ceasefire.
The Republican gave few details about the second phase of the peace deal and the future of Gaza.
During an earlier meeting of his cabinet, Trump said ‘there will be disarming, there will be pullbacks,’ in apparent reference to Israel’s demand that Hamas disarm and calls by the Palestinian group for Israel to withdraw its forces, but did not elaborate.
He added that Gaza would be ‘slowly redone’ and indicated that Arab states with ‘tremendous wealth’ would help it rebuild, as well as possibly taking part in peacekeeping efforts.
Trump, who in February proposed that the US take over Gaza, also rejected speculation that Palestinians could be forced out of the devastated enclave.
‘Nobody’s going to be forced to leave. No, it’s just the opposite. This is a great plan,’ Trump said.
Trump, however, played down the question of whether he would achieve his long-held dream of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, whose laureate is announced on Friday.
‘I don’t know what they’re going to do, really. But I know this, that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months,’ he said.
His cabinet officials lined up to praise him, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had on Wednesday handed the US president a note during an event saying a deal was imminent.
‘Frankly, I don’t know of any American president in the modern era that could have made this possible,’ Rubio said during the cabinet meeting.
Rubio also hinted at the tough negotiations that led to the agreement, which saw Trump pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rally Arab and Muslim states to lean on Hamas.
‘One day, perhaps the entire story will be told,’ Rubio said.
‘The president had some extraordinary phone calls and meetings that required a high degree of intensity and commitment and made this happen.’
