Israel's political-security cabinet voted on Sunday to let an international force into the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media. "The Cabinet approved the entry into the Gaza Strip of a multinational force affiliated with the Board of Peace," Israel Hayom reported. The public broadcaster KAN said the decision effectively clears the way to establish a headquarters for the force near Rafah, in the south.

There is no Israeli government statement. Everything known about the vote comes from Israeli newspapers and broadcasters, relayed by Anadolu Ajansı.

The room was not unanimous. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, voted against, according to Yedioth Ahronoth. "Hamas has not honored its commitment to demilitarize the Gaza Strip and disarm, so neither are we bound by it," he said. He added that the solution in Gaza was to "encourage migration."

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar answered him during the meeting. It was "an international plan," Saar said. "We may not succeed, but we should not be the ones to derail it."

What the force is

The International Stabilization Force was authorized by the UN Security Council on 17 November 2025, in Resolution 2803, which endorsed President Trump's 20-point plan for ending the war and running Gaza's transition. The vote was 13 in favor, none against, with China and Russia abstaining.

It is not a UN peacekeeping operation. The Council authorized it; the force answers to the Board of Peace, the body Trump's plan created to oversee the territory. Under the plan it is meant to train and support Palestinian police, consult Egypt and Jordan, work with Israel and Egypt on border security, keep weapons out and goods moving.

Morocco said on 15 July that it would send officers, police and gendarmerie and build a field hospital. About 30 Moroccan officers have already made a field visit to Gaza, KAN reported. Washington has been in talks with several other governments about contributing personnel, among them Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar and Türkiye.

The Turkish question the vote does not answer

Türkiye has been on the candidate list since the force was authorized. It has also been ruled out, in public, by the Israeli prime minister.

Speaking in the Knesset last October, Benjamin Netanyahu said Türkiye and Qatar would have no authority, no influence and no soldiers in postwar Gaza. "Turkish soldiers and Qatari soldiers will not be in the strip," he said, and his office repeated the position to the Times of Israel. Saar, the foreign minister now urging his colleagues not to derail the plan, said Israel opposed Turkish participation because of President Erdoğan's hostility toward Israel.

Ankara did not accept that as settled. A senior Turkish official said at the time that no final decision had been made about Türkiye's role.

Nine months on, Israel's cabinet has voted to admit the force. Whether the force it admitted is one Türkiye is part of, nobody has said. The reporting out of Israel on Sunday does not address composition at all, and TurkishPress found no response from the Turkish Foreign Ministry or the Presidency to the cabinet decision.

Where the plan actually stands

A vote to permit a headquarters is not a deployment, and the plan it belongs to has been stuck for months.

Phase one called for a ceasefire, a partial Israeli withdrawal, the release of the remaining Israeli captives and 600 aid trucks a day. Hamas released the captives. Israel has gone on attacking. Anadolu Ajansı reports that it has also restricted humanitarian entry, and puts the toll since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025 at 1,123 Palestinians killed and 3,616 wounded.

Phase two requires a broader Israeli withdrawal and the start of reconstruction, alongside the disarmament of Palestinian factions. Israel insists disarmament comes first and has not moved. Hamas says demanding it while Israel skips its own obligations contradicts Trump's plan. On the agency's count, Israeli forces still hold more than 70 percent of the Gaza Strip.

The civilian side is moving faster than the military one. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the technocratic body created under Resolution 2803, met the Board of Peace in Brussels on 13 July, where donors launched a "Gaza Team" of more than 12 countries with the European Investment Bank and the World Bank, aiming at about $1 billion. Its chief, Ali Shaath, says the committee is ready now. Egypt's foreign minister spent 23 July asking Washington to hurry the force along.

Behind all of it sits Israel's genocide in Gaza, a characterization grounded in Türkiye's official position, in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention, and in findings by UN human-rights bodies. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 and more than 173,000 wounded. Ninety percent of Gaza's civilian infrastructure is destroyed.

What Israel approved on Sunday, according to its own press, is a building near Rafah.