US to construct half a billion-dollar military base near Gaza to supervise ceasefire – report

The U.S. is planning to establish a new military base in Israel near the Gaza Strip that could house thousands of soldiers to supervise and maintain the ceasefire with Hamas, Ynet News reported on Tuesday.

According to the report that is based on information obtained by Shomrim, a nonprofit news organization, the U.S. is coordinating its plans with the Israeli government and the IDF and is already in the process of examining potential sites.

“This shows just how determined they are to be involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a security source said.

The new base is intended for use by the International Stabilization Force (ISF) that is being planned to take up security operations in Gaza in the future, Israeli security officials said.

It will reportedly be able to accommodate several thousand soldiers and is expected to cost around half a billion dollars.

Last month, the U.S. opened another base in the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat. This base functions as a headquarters for representatives of several countries supervising the ceasefire.

The Command and Control Center (CMCC) houses some 200 soldiers, but most of the U.S. and international representatives fulfill administrative functions rather than being combat soldiers.

Last week, The Washington Post reported that the CMCC had taken over responsibility for overseeing humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, relegating Israel to a secondary role.

“The CMCC in Kiryat Gat is going to be responsible for most of the operations in Gaza, and Israel’s status as the central player in the Strip is going to change,” Dr. Michael Milshtein, a senior researcher at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told Ynet News.

The reported new base would join a series of similar moves by the U.S. to establish a military presence along Israel’s borders. U.S. troops are leading the ceasefire monitoring mechanism in southern Lebanon, and last week, reports indicated that the U.S. will set up a similar presence in southern Syria.

Israeli security officials said that this new development underlined the Trump administration’s determination to be involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It marks a significant departure from the traditional military relationship between Israel and the U.S., as Israel has always opposed the presence of foreign troops or any direct involvement in its conflicts.

However, the Gaza War saw direct assistance by several countries, mainly the U.S., in defending Israel against missile assaults from Iran and others.

The U.S. deployed a THAAD missile defense battery and around 100 soldiers in Israel to help intercept missile attacks.

The move to establish new bases in Israel and neighboring countries could have significant domestic political ramifications for the governments of Israel and the U.S.

An increasingly influential stream in the Republican Party, including former Trump allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, has been calling for the winding down of foreign military involvement.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under increasing criticism for allegedly kowtowing to the Trump administration, to the degree that he felt the need to publicly declare that Israel wasn't a “client state” of the U.S.

On Monday, Yisrael Beitenu chairman Avigdor Liberman sarcastically thanked “acting prime minister Jared Kushner” and “member of the security cabinet Steve Witkoff” for visiting Israel amid reports that the government is being pressured by the U.S. to release the Hamas terrorists trapped on Israel’s side of the Gaza ceasefire line.