Israel to allow international force into Gaza: official
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Israel will allow a multinational security force to enter Gaza as proposed under US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for the enclave, an Israeli official says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet on Sunday approved the legal framework that would allow the force’s entry to Gaza, the official said. Netanyahu is scheduled to depart for Washington on Monday and is expected to meet Trump on Tuesday.
The official said the mission, called the International Stabilization Force, will include 200 members from “friendly countries such as Uganda and Morocco” deploying in areas that are not under Israeli control. Each contingent requires individual Israeli approval to enter Gaza.
It was unclear when the forces would deploy.
Much of Gaza remains in ruins from two years of full-scale war triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
After a ceasefire deal was struck in October, Trump set out a peace plan for Gaza that provided for a surge in humanitarian aid, civilian administration by Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its arms and Israeli forces withdrawing.
But the plan has stalled and the group of technocrats – known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza – has remained outside Gaza.
Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of Gaza while nearly all of its two million people live on a sliver of land on the coast under Hamas control, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings and facing dire conditions.
Hamas has so far refused to disarm and Israel has said it will expand its area of control in Gaza to 70 per cent of the enclave, where it has continued almost daily military strikes.
Earlier, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank, setting fire to two mosques and scrawling graffiti on buildings, Palestinian officials said.
The attacks followed an incident on Friday when four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers – one of whom acted as a security co-ordinator for a nearby Israeli settlement – were killed when a crowd of Israeli settlers, some armed, approached the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of Nablus.
During the incident, villagers came out of their homes to confront the settlers and a stand-off ensued, with video appearing to show one of the Palestinians grabbing a settler’s weapon.
Palestinian local authorities say the settlers provoked the violence.
The Israeli military said shots were fired by both sides.
The incident was the latest in a series of clashes this year involving settlers in which dozens of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded, according to figures from the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority.
Settlers carried out a series of attacks on Palestinian villages in different areas of the West Bank in the early hours of the morning, Palestinian officials said.
Abdel Azim Wadi, head of the village council in Qusra, southeast of Nablus, said settlers had torched a newly completed mosque in his village early on Sunday.
“The mosque was in its final stage and was ready to receive worshippers. It had already been furnished with couches. They set it on fire and spray-painted Hebrew slogans on its walls,” he told Reuters.
Among the graffiti were messages including “Jewish revenge” and the name of one of the Israelis killed near Tal.
The Palestinian Authority, which has responsibility for the section of the West Bank where Friday’s shootings took place, said the incident was part of a generalised assault on Palestinians.
Reuters