Kazakhstan and Kosovo have also committed to participating, while Egypt and Jordan will also provide training for police officers.
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Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have committed to sending troops to Gaza, the commander of the newly created International Stabilization Force (ISF) said at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s so-called peace commission.
U.S. Army Gen. Jasper Jeffers, who was appointed by President Trump’s board to be the future commander of the Gaza Stabilization Force, said Thursday that the Indonesian contingent participating in the mission has “accepted the position of deputy commander.”
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“These first steps will help bring needed security to Gaza,” Jeffers told the board in Washington, DC.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, one of several world leaders at the meeting, said his country would contribute up to 8,000 troops to the planned force “to make this peace work” in the war-torn Palestinian territory, where at least 72,000 people have been killed in genocide by Israel.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country would also send an unspecified number of troops, including medical units, to Gaza, and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said his country was ready to send police officers to Gaza.
Albania, whose prime minister recently visited Israel on a two-day official visit, also said it would contribute troops, while neighboring Egypt and Jordan said they would also participate by training police officers.
Indonesia, one of the first countries to announce it would send troops, is seeking to reassure potential critics that its participation in the Gaza Strip is to ensure compliance with international law amid Israel’s genocidal onslaught.
“The Indonesian military will not be involved in combat operations.”
Indonesia’s foreign minister met with both United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Palestine Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour in New York on Wednesday, ahead of President Subianto’s participation in the Peace Council meeting.
According to the Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a recent statement that “Indonesia’s mission (of deploying troops) is humanitarian in nature, focusing on the protection of civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction, and training and capacity building of the Palestinian police.”
“The Indonesian military will not engage in combat operations or actions that lead to direct confrontation with any armed group,” the ministry said in response to a question posed by Amnesty International about its future role in Gaza.
Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid expressed concern that Indonesia risks violating international law through its participation in the Peace Council and the Gaza Stabilization Plan.
Hamid warned that Indonesia’s deployment of troops to Gaza “puts Indonesia at risk of joining a mechanism that reinforces violations of international humanitarian law.”
“The peace council does not include the most disadvantaged Palestinian members, but instead includes members from Israel, which has carried out illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people for nearly 80 years, even committing genocide in Gaza,” Hamid wrote in an open letter to the President of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia last week.
Palestinians have also expressed concern that President Trump’s peace commission will only further solidify Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli military continues to build additional “buffer zones” and restrict the entry of food and other aid, months after a so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas, during which some 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.
The Gaza Stabilization Force is different from other peacekeeping forces deployed by multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union.
In neighboring Lebanon, more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 countries continue to participate in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was established in 1978.
Indonesia is one of the largest troop contributors to UNIFIL, along with Italy, and despite the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, UNIFIL has repeatedly come under Israeli shelling.
