Benjamin Netanyahu opened a recent Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem with a statement one would not expect from an Israeli prime minister to fellow ministers: “Israel is an independent state – our security policy is in our own hands.”
Israel alone, he added, would determine which nations would be allowed to join the so-called International Stabilization Force for Gaza – meant to keep the peace as stipulated in U.S. President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan to end the war.
In fact, Mr. Netanyahu’s comments to his Cabinet followed stinging pushback within Israel that his government was essentially outsourcing the nation’s security by capitulating to American pressure when it comes to the force’s makeup.
Why We Wrote This
Israel has long prided itself on “going it alone” in a region largely hostile to its existence. But as nations seek an international force to preserve the fragile Gaza ceasefire, Israelis are grappling with the notion of trusting their security to others.
Other examples of such pressure now visible to Israelis include, notably, a new U.S.-led military compound within Israel that is staffed by about 200 American soldiers alongside troops from Jordan, France, Germany, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada, among others.
The base’s mission is to oversee the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza after two years of fighting that have devastated the coastal Palestinian enclave.
Also evident in recent weeks have been high-profile visits from senior U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meant to keep the Netanyahu government from taking steps that would jeopardize the fragile truce.
As a result, Israel, which has long prided itself on “going it alone” in a region largely hostile to its existence, is now grappling with this shift in security approach in the wake of the Gaza conflict and the multifront war it opened.
“In the past, there was this idea that if you give Israel weapons, it will defend itself, by itself,” says Yaakov Katz, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. “It does not need soldiers or troops on the ground. It can do everything itself.
“I think the last two years have shown us that that is no longer the case.”
Facing off with Iran
Periodically, over the last two years, one of the most devastating battlefronts for Israel was with archfoe Iran. Tehran not only poses what is perceived to be a nuclear threat to the Jewish state, but it has orchestrated a proxy war against Israel that has included funding and arming Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis of Yemen.
Three times, Israel and Iran exchanged direct blows – twice in 2024 and most significantly in June, when an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites instantly escalated into a brief, but full-blown war. That drew in the United States, whose ground-penetrating, bunker-busting bombs helped bring the war to an abrupt end 12 days later.
In the two 2024 Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel, it was a U.S. Centcom-led coalition of French, British, Jordanian, and American forces that helped Israel successfully ward off the assaults. Early in the Gaza war, in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel and amid fears of a more destructive conflict with heavily armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, then-President Joe Biden sent U.S. aircraft carriers to the region.
“When you look to the future, forgetting even for a moment who will oversee the security of Gaza, there is a bigger question: the recognition that Israel cannot look after its security interests alone,” says Mr. Katz, co-author of the newly published “While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East.”
“This requires an understanding of the situation and making the necessary changes accordingly and that includes asking, for example, are we doing enough to preserve bipartisan support in the United States … and could peace efforts be a replacement for endless war?” he says.
“There’s lots for Israel to consider.”
There were previous instances in which international ground forces played a role in Israeli security, albeit with varying degrees of success, which is why Israelis tend to have a dim view of them at best. There is, for example, an observer force in the Sinai Peninsula overseeing the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and there have been U.N. forces in Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
Gaza conundrum
There is no one easy solution to the security situation in Gaza. Though the initial hostages-for-prisoners exchange has taken place (with Israel still awaiting the bodies of the final eight hostages), Hamas militants have yet to disarm and are largely back in control, including executing anyone it deems a dissident or threat.
It is proving challenging, if not impossible, to convince Arab and Muslim nations in particular to put their troops in a situation in which they might have to actively fight Hamas forces, rather than simply secure Gaza’s border with Israel and prevent arms from entering the enclave.
But though, historically, Israel does not favor the idea of internationalization of its security needs, “in this case, Israel will benefit from the outcome of internationalization of the Gaza Strip,” says Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank.
That is because, he says, “for the first time, Israel has succeeded in sharing the Palestinian [security] burden with the international community.”
Like some members of the Netanyahu government, Mr. Michael, who divides his time with the Misgav Institute for Strategic Studies, suggests that Hamas intransigence might lead to Israel returning to war in the sections of Gaza still under its control. A glimpse of that was seen last week in the form of sweeping Israeli airstrikes that reportedly killed 100 people after a Hamas attack killed an Israeli reservist.
The case of Turkey
The condition of Israel’s total withdrawal from the Gaza Strip – of which Israeli forces currently control roughly 50% – is deployment of an international Gaza force.
For Moshe Tur-Paz, an opposition lawmaker on the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the foremost rule still must be that Israel leads the fight to defend its own borders.
“The current coalition is supposed to be so right-wing, but [the fact it] has given such a key place to other armies is quite questionable, not necessarily the best thing for Israeli interests,” he says. “The fact that other countries are contributing efforts to overtake Hamas rule in Gaza is a good thing, [but] that too may threaten Israel.”
Turkey, for example, which has clashed in recent years with Israel and been close to Hamas, said it would be willing to commit troops for the ceasefire monitoring force – an offer Israel quickly rejected.
But how much Israel will be able to dictate who is part of such a force is an open question.
“The problem from Israel’s perspective is that it cannot just do what it wants anymore, and that has implications,” says Mr. Katz.
