The United States says it is sending about 200 troops to the occupied territories to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire deal that will bring an end to Israel’s two-year-long genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
In an X post on Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the troops, who are already stationed at the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) in West Asia, will work with other foreign forces on the ground.
Citing unnamed officials, US media reported that the CENTCOM is going to establish a “civil-military coordination center” in the occupied lands which will help facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid as well as logistical and security assistance into Gaza.
They added that the US troops, who have expertise in transportation, planning, security, logistics and engineering, will join soldiers from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to monitor the Gaza truce.
“No US troops are intended to go into Gaza,” said one of the officials, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another official said the American troops will be under the purview of CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper, adding, “His role will be to oversee, observe, make sure there are no violations, incursions.”
Following three days of indirect negotiations in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Hamas resistance group agreed to the Gaza ceasefire plan proposed by US President Donald Trump.
Under the first phase of the agreement, Hamas would free about 20 Israeli captives believed to still be alive and the remains of others who have died, in exchange for the release of roughly 2,000 Palestinian abductees being held in Israeli jails.
It also includes the withdrawal of the occupation forces to an agreed line in the Gaza Strip that would leave them in control of 53 percent of the besieged territory.
Israel’s cabinet approved the truce deal early on Friday. The ceasefire should take hold in the next 24 hours, with the captives being released within 72 hours.
The UN says hundreds of aid lorries will carry food, medicine and fuel to Gaza’s two million people, most of whom have been displaced due to the Israeli campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Israel unleashed its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives in Gaza, despite killing, according to the health ministry of Gaza, 67,194 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 169,890 others
