Hamas Meets in Cairo as Israel Prepares International Stabilization Force for Gaza

A US-backed Gaza peace plan continued to progress slowly after Hamas met in Cairo, but ceasefire talks held in the first week and a half of June appeared to stall over Hamas’s disarmament, according to i24News media reported on June 10.

On June 18, Kosovo Ambassador to Israel Ines Demiri visited a logistics site near the Gaza border that the Board of Peace calls Life Support Area Endurance, saying it “will serve as a vital waypoint for ISF to refit while supporting restoration & humanitarian efforts.”

Al Jazeera

The dispute over disarmament provisions and the wording of restrictions on weapons in Gaza was described by Asharq al-Awsat as focusing on the eighth and ninth clauses of the US and UN-backed plan, with Cairo discussions centering on weapons and the ISF.

Israel’s IDF continued strikes while stating Hamas and other groups were violating the ceasefire, with the IDF saying on June 17 it struck Hamas members in the central part of the territory and accusing targets of being involved in ceasefire violations by seeking to restore the group.

Israel HaYom reported that Hamas “continued to sidestep demands that it disarm” while demanding that Israel implement military withdrawals in Gaza, as the IDF controlled around 50 percent of the territory after the ceasefire agreement and Netanyahu said in late May that Israel controlled around 60 percent.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told AFP that his organization was open to international peacekeeping forces in Gaza to monitor the ceasefire, ensure its implementation, and act as “a buffer between the Israeli occupying army and our people in the Gaza Strip, without interfering in Gaza's internal affairs.”

Qassem also said Hamas rejected any interference in the enclave's internal affairs, while the Times of Israël reported that Hamas had initially opposed the International Stabilization Force (ISF) when the idea was first presented last year by the United States in its twenty-point plan to end the war in Gaza.

Al-Jazeera Net

During the Peace Council’s inaugural session in Washington, Donald Trump said five countries—Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, and Kazakhstan—agreed to provide soldiers for the ISF, and the council meeting provided no timetable for Hamas's disarmament or the Israeli army's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

In Khan Younes in southern Gaza, Palestinians who spoke to AFP were torn between hope and skepticism about the Washington meeting, and Farid Abu Odeh said of the council, “Trump is merely a military force imposing his views on the world.”

Hugh Lovatt, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP he found what emerged from the council “very worrying,” arguing that Palestinian voices were excluded and that reconstruction ideas came from partners favorable to Israel.

Indonesia declared on Sunday, February 15, that it is ready to deploy 8,000 soldiers by June 2026 to the Gaza Strip as part of a peacekeeping mission proposed within Donald Trump’s Peace Council framework, with President Prabowo Subianto also saying he was ready to deploy 20,000 sons and daughters of the nation to maintain peace in Gaza in September before the United Nations.

“International Stabilization Force in the Gaza Strip: Israel Prepares Deployment as Early as May A report cites about 5,000 Indonesian soldiers within a multinational contingent tied to the postwar plan backed by Trump”

Anadolu Ajansı

In a separate report, the Israeli public broadcaster KAN cited by Anadolu Ajansı said Israel is preparing to deploy an international stabilization force in the Gaza Strip starting in May, with the force expected to include about 5,000 Indonesian soldiers and dozens of service members from Kazakhstan, Morocco, Albania, and Kosovo.

Anadolu Ajansı also reported that the contingent could begin operations as early as May 1, with the first phase deploying troops around a Palestinian city under construction in the Rafah area in southern Gaza backed by the United Arab Emirates, before gradually expanding to other parts of the enclave.

The Al-Jazeera Net report said Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that elements of the International Stabilization Force have arrived in Israel and that a logistics support center is being established at the Kerem Abu Salem crossing to serve as a reception and transit point for forces expected to arrive successively over the coming weeks.

The same Al-Jazeera Net account described the force as one of four entities designated to administer Gaza under UN Security Council Resolution 2803 issued on November 17, 2025, and said the plan’s phase one came into effect on October 10, 2025, while Hamas pledged to meet the phase requirements and Israel continued its aggression and siege.