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 U.S. 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 U.S. soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey 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.
WATCH | U.S. sends team to reinforce ceasefire:
The U.S. has sent two top advisers and its vice-president to the Middle East as it scrambles to hold together an increasingly fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
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.
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 Oct. 7, 2023, continues to control all access to the territory.
Hamas expands hostage search
Hamas has expanded its search for bodies of hostages in the Gaza Strip, the group said Sunday, a day after Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help retrieve them.
Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, which took effect on Oct. 10, Hamas is expected to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel has agreed to return 15 bodies of Palestinians for each one.
Children and others watched the Egyptian equipment claw through the sand near badly damaged buildings in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Hamas has returned the remains of 15 hostages but hasn’t handed over any in five days. Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians, many of them unidentified.
WATCH | Palestinians look for loved ones among dead returned by Israel:
The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that Israel had released 30 bodies of Palestinians killed during the war, taking the total of bodies it has received since Monday to 120. Forensic experts in Gaza are working to identify the bodies, some of which they say show signs of physical abuse.
More complicated steps lie ahead under the ceasefire plan, including the disarming of Hamas and the postwar governance of famine-stricken Gaza, where the United Nations and partners continue to urge Israel to allow in more humanitarian aid.
International media have been barred from Gaza aside from brief visits with Israel’s military, and Israel on Sunday said that hadn’t changed.
Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, said the group started searching new areas for bodies of the remaining 13 hostages, according to comments the group shared Sunday.
WATCH | Funerals held in Israel for returned dead hostages:
It was a sombre day in Israel as more funerals took place for some hostages whose remains were repatriated from Gaza earlier this week. Israel is demanding that Hamas return the bodies of the 19 hostages it has not yet handed over, with Hamas saying it requires heavy machinery to access them. In total, nine bodies of hostages have been returned.
Trump warned Saturday he was “watching very closely” to ensure Hamas returns more bodies in the next 48 hours. “Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not,” he wrote on social media.
Hamas has repeatedly said efforts to retrieve remains face challenges because of the massive destruction.
An Egyptian team with equipment including an excavator and bulldozers entered Gaza on Saturday as part of mediators’ efforts to shore up the ceasefire, two Egyptian officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Hamas alleges violation after Israeli strikes
Netanyahu defended the military’s actions after Israeli forces struck the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza late Saturday, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the wounded.
The military claimed it targeted militants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack troops. Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, denied the allegation.
Hamas called the strike a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and accused Netanyahu of attempting to sabotage U.S. efforts to end the war.
“Of course, we also thwart dangers as they are being formed, before they are carried out, as we did just yesterday in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday.
Netanyahu also stressed that Israel remained in charge of its own security, after accusations last week that the Trump administration was dictating terms of Israel’s response to security concerns in Gaza. Vice-President JD Vance denied any such speculation during his visit.
Israel also targeted Nuseirat on Oct. 19, after the military accused Hamas militants of killing two soldiers. Israel that day launched dozens of strikes across Gaza, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, according to local health authorities. It was the most serious challenge to the ceasefire.
More than 68,500 Palestinians have been killed after two years of war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has disputed the figure without providing its own toll.
