US commander says 20,000 soldiers, 12,000 policemen planned for Gaza

Major General Jasper Jeffers, commander of the newly created International Stabilisation Force (ISF) under a proposed Gaza peace arrangement, said the mission is expected to eventually comprise 20,000 soldiers operating alongside 12,000 Palestinian police officers across the Gaza Strip.

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the US-proposed Board of Peace, Jeffers said training for both ISF personnel and a reconstituted Palestinian police force would take place in Egypt and Jordan, according to Xinhua news agency. He did not provide a timeline for deployment or specify how many troops each contributing country would send.

Jeffers said the governments of Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Albania, as well as authorities in Kosovo, have committed forces to the ISF, which is intended to deploy to Gaza as part of a broader stabilization and reconstruction framework.

At the same meeting, Donald Trump announced that nine countries — Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Kuwait — have pledged a combined $7 billion toward Gaza relief and rebuilding efforts. The amount, however, falls well short of the estimated $70 billion reconstruction cost cited by officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled that reconstruction would be conditional on security guarantees. “There will be no reconstruction of the Gaza Strip before its demilitarisation,” he said during an Israel Defense Forces officers’ graduation ceremony on Thursday, referring to Hamas.

Trump formally launched the Board of Peace last month in Davos, Switzerland, positioning it as a US-led mechanism to coordinate security, governance and reconstruction efforts in Gaza following the conflict. However, the initiative has been met with skepticism in several capitals, with critics questioning whether it could duplicate or sideline existing international frameworks.

European Council president Antonio Costa said the European Union has “serious doubts” about aspects of the Board of Peace, including its mandate, governance structure and compatibility with the UN Charter.

As diplomatic maneuvering continues, the proposed stabilisation force and reconstruction fund underscore the scale of the political, financial and security challenges facing postwar Gaza.

With IANS inputs