International security forces (ISF) continue to change hands; King of Jordan remarks
Yesterday’s reporting inside a Times of Israel article:
Focusing on a separate part of Trump’s vision for Gaza, defense officials were reported to have told Israeli lawmakers last week that the International Stabilization Force, which is intended to take over security of the Gaza Strip once the IDF has withdrawn, will likely include troops from Pakistan.
According to a report on the Ynet news site, members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee were told during a closed-door briefing last week that the International Stabilization Force will be made up of soldiers from Indonesia, Azerbaijan and Pakistan.
Indonesia has publicly offered to send troops for the effort, and officials have told The Times of Israel that Azerbaijan had also agreed to contribute soldiers.
I believe Israel has drawn red lines at Turkey, Qatar and Palestinian Authority involvement in either ISF or governance of Gaza. Which seems to be holding for the moment
The involvement of Indonesia or Pakistan does not seem to bode well to me however. In particular I heard police forces in Pakistan are pretty weak, not well dressed. True?
While Indonesia has signed a large deal with China yesterday for J-10 fighters. If there is a US-Israel-Sunni axis and a China-Russia-Iran axis, the intentions of Indonesia don’t seem clearly known.
If this is the current ISF mix, am I right in thinking it’s largely ornamental? IDSF (unofficial spokespeople for IDF) seems convinced it’ll just be IDF at the end of the day. Can these countries meaningfully commit?
The King of Jordan reflected yesterday ro BBC on why it’s not joining. “International troops won't want to enforce Gaza peace, says King of Jordan”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge5ngz11xpo
He says Jordan has a large Palestinian population and is too close to the conflict to participate. But also
Countries would reject being asked to "enforce" peace in Gaza if deployed under the Trump ceasefire plan, King Abdullah of Jordan has told the BBC. "What is the mandate of security forces inside of Gaza? And we hope that it is peacekeeping, because if it's peace enforcing, nobody will want to touch that," said King Abdullah in an exclusive interview for BBC Panorama. "Peacekeeping is that you're sitting there supporting the local police force, the Palestinians, which Jordan and Egypt are willing to train in large numbers, but that takes time. If we're running around Gaza on patrol with weapons, that's not a situation that any country would like to get involved in."
The king of Jordan says Qatar and Egypt are very optimistic that Hamas won’t have a part to play in Gaza. Which probably doesn’t mean anything much at all since I believe it was Muslim Brotherhood which nearly topped Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is still active and present in Qatar (the other country is Kuwait; three other gulf countries UAE, Saudi Arabia and one other have rejected Muslim Brotherhood). And Hamas is considered an arm of Muslim Brotherhood isnt it?
King Abdullah said he would not send Jordanian forces into Gaza because his country was "too close politically" to the situation. More than half of Jordan's population is of Palestinian descent, and over decades, the country has taken in 2.3 million Palestinian refugees fleeing earlier wars with Israel - the largest number in the region. Asked if he trusted Hamas to keep its promise to give up any political role in Gaza, he replied: "I don't know them, but those that are working extremely close to them - Qatar and Egypt - feel very, very optimistic that they will abide by that.
And then says which I find interesting:
"If we don't solve this problem, if we don't find a future for Israelis and Palestinians and a relationship between the Arab and Muslim world and Israel, we're doomed."
Find a future for Israelis? A relationship with Israel? Is that an admission Israel is here to stay?
Posted Oct 28, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC