Israel reportedly blocks 16,500 vetted Gaza police recruits from training in Egypt

The Israeli government is preventing approximately 16,500 vetted Gazan police recruits from leaving the Gaza Strip to receive training abroad, two Board of Peace (BoP) officials told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

The recruits represent approximately 5% of the 283,000 applications received by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) since February. The emerging Gazan police force is intended to eventually replace the Hamas terrorist organization as the governing authority in the coastal enclave.

“The number of applications reflects the tremendous demand among Gazans to support the NCAG in this capacity,” a BoP official said on the sidelines of the MEAD conference in Washington, D.C. “The vetting shows the seriousness that was applied over a lengthy period of time to select strong candidates without linkages to any terrorist activity.”

According to the BoP officials, the recruits were vetted by the Israeli government and the NCAG in cooperation with other countries participating in the U.S.-controlled Gaza Support Center in southern Israel. The center is tasked with monitoring the fragile ceasefire in Gaza brokered by the Trump administration in October 2025.

Despite the vetting process, the officials said that Israel continues to block thousands of recruits from receiving police training in neighboring Egypt. The Board of Peace is also seeking Israeli guarantees that recruits permitted to leave Gaza for training will be allowed to return to the Strip afterward.

The BoP has reportedly been pressing Israel on the issue for months but has yet to receive final approval from Jerusalem.

The dispute comes amid broader disagreements between the U.S. and Israel over the future of Gaza and the proposed disarmament of Hamas.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior envoy Jared Kushner attributed some of the current disagreements with Israel to the country’s upcoming elections. He nevertheless emphasized that Washington and Jerusalem remain aligned on the desired outcome in Gaza and said the two sides were working through their remaining differences.

Washington and Jerusalem agree that Hamas should be disarmed and removed from a governing role in Gaza. However, the two allies have disagreed over how and when that should happen. During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem last month, Kushner reportedly expressed frustration over Netanyahu’s opposition to the BoP’s 15-point plan for disarming Hamas.

At the center of the disagreement is Hamas’ demand that Israel withdraw its military forces from Gaza. Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials have said that the IDF will remain in the Strip until Hamas is disarmed and no longer poses a security threat to Israel.

Senior Hamas leaders have repeatedly rejected calls to surrender their weapons and have vowed to continue what they describe as “resistance” against Israel – a term frequently used to describe armed opposition to Israel.