US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said “a lot of countries” have offered to be part of an international security force for Gaza – a key part of President Donald Trump’s peace plan – but added Israel would have to be comfortable with participants.
Speaking on a visit to Israel, Rubio said talks on forming the International Stabilization Force (ISF) were continuing and that it would come into effect “as soon as it possibly can”.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with Hamas.
He said the Israel-Hamas ceasefire had made “historic” progress since it began two weeks ago, but warned to expect “ups and downs and twists and turns”.
“There is no plan B,” he said. “This is the best plan. It’s the only plan. And it’s one that we think can succeed.”
Rubio said conditions had to be created “so that never again will we see what happened on 7 October, so that you can actually be in a place [Gaza] that no longer has elements operating within it that are a threat to Israel or to their own people for that matter”.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.
At least 68,280 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel military campaign that followed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the United Nations as reliable.
Rubio said Hamas will be disarmed, as required by Trump’s plan. “If Hamas refuses to demilitarise, it’ll be a violation of the agreement and that’ll have to be enforced,” he said.
“Hamas cannot govern and cannot be involved in governing the future of Gaza,” he added.
Rubio’s visit caps a week in which senior American officials, including Vice-President JD Vance, came to Israel. It’s a sign that Washington is determined to make Trump’s plan for Gaza succeed and is concerned that actions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government might collapse it. In Israeli media, the effort has been described as “Bibi-sitting”, a play with the prime minister’s nickname.
In recent days, multiple reports have suggested the White House’s frustration with the Israeli government, fuelled by the military’s deadly response to an attack it blamed on Hamas in Gaza last weekend and the vote in the Israeli parliament towards the annexation of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, while Vance was visiting.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that American officials said they would “not tolerate any surprises from Israel that could jeopardise the ceasefire”, and that they were expecting advance notice from Israel before any strikes in Gaza. “In practice,” the report said, “the US [was] taking over certain security authorities from Israel”.
In public, Netanyahu, whose coalition relies on the support of ultra-nationalist ministers, has rejected reports that Washington is making decisions on Israel’s behalf, describing the country’s relationship as a partnership.
The apparent pressure from the country’s most important ally, at a time when Israel faces unprecedented isolation, risks derailing his strategy to frame the war in Gaza as a victory at home. This narrative will be essential in the campaign for the next parliamentary election, which should be held by October 2026.
Both Rubio and Vance tried to strike a positive tone in their public statements – both said they were optimistic the ceasefire would hold – while also acknowledging that the negotiations over the remaining points would be difficult and long.
Those issues include the scale of the Israeli withdrawal, the future governance of Gaza and the formation of the ISF, as well as the disarmament by Hamas, and they offered no indication of how those talks would proceed.
Rubio said there were “a lot of countries” that offered to take part in the ISF. “Obviously, as you put together this force, it’ll have to be people that Israel’s comfortable, or countries that Israel’s comfortable with as well,” he added, without elaborating.
This appeared to be a reference to Turkey, which has become a major player in the negotiations, amid reports Israel has vetoed the country’s involvement.
The scope of the ISF’s mission remains unclear, as countries appear to be concerned with the possibility that its forces might end up confronting Hamas fighters if there is no agreement with the group over the ISF deployment.
Seeing the peace plan through is “not going to be an easy ride”, Rubio said. “There are going to be bumps along the road, but we have to make it work.”