200 US troops in Israel to monitor ceasefire as IDF withdraws from Gaza

The American troops will not enter Gaza but will instead staff a newly established “civil-military coordination center” set up by US Central Command. The facility will operate in coordination with allied nations and non-governmental organizations to monitor the truce and humanitarian efforts.

The Israeli Security Council voted Thursday to approve the first phase of a peace proposal, officially enacting a ceasefire that includes both a withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of hostages held by Hamas. The agreement was reached after intense negotiations in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh, where envoys from Israel and Hamas met indirectly through mediators.

Foreign diplomats, including representatives from the United States, Turkey, and other nations, gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh as the deal neared completion. Among them were Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law and former senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally thanked both men following the Security Council’s approval of the plan.

“We fought during these two years to achieve our war aims, and a central one of these war aims is to return the hostages, all of the hostages, the living and the dead, and we’re about to achieve that goal,” Netanyahu said. “We couldn’t have achieved it without the extraordinary help of President Trump and his team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.”

Netanyahu also praised the Israel Defense Forces for exerting “combined military and diplomatic pressure that isolated Hamas [and] brought us to this point.”

The structure of the ceasefire builds on a US-backed proposal unveiled last month during a joint press conference with Trump and Netanyahu. At the time, the president said the plan could “lay the groundwork for eternal peace in the Middle East.”

A coalition of Arab nations, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, issued a joint statement after the announcement supporting Trump’s leadership and “his sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza,” expressing confidence in his ability “to find a path to peace.”

Witkoff wrote on Friday, "CENTCOM has confirmed that the Israeli Defense Forces completed the first phase withdrawal to the yellow line at 12PM local time. The 72 hour period to release the hostages has begun."