A small number of British planning officers has been sent to Israel to join a US-led multinational taskforce to help monitor the ceasefire in Gaza, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
The taskforce, called the civil military coordination centre, is also likely to include troops from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the UAE, US officials have previously said.
British troops are not going into Gaza, as it currently stands, and they are not being sent into a combat zone.
The Israeli government has approved the first phase of a Gaza deal with Hamas, which has led to a ceasefire and the release of hostages and prisoners.
Earlier this month, American officials said up to 200 US troops already based in the Middle East would be moved to Israel to support the taskforce.
They said it would be led by US Central Command (Centcom) based in the region, and was intended to oversee the progress of the ceasefire agreement and also help coordinate humanitarian assistance.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the MoD said the UK “continues to work with international partners to support the Gaza ceasefire to see where the UK can best contribute to the peace process”.
In a speech at Mansion House on Monday, Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK had sent a senior commander to deputise for a US commander tasked with running the centre in Israel, following an American request.
He said Britain “can contribute to the monitoring of the ceasefire”, but others would take the lead.
“Britain will play an anchor role, who will contribute to the specialist experience and skills where we can but we don’t expect to be leading in the way,” Healey added.
An MoD source said the efforts were part of “showing the UK is playing its part in setting the framework on what comes next”.
Further work on what more the UK can contribute is understood to be under discussion.
In the first two decades of this century, the UK military has built up extensive experience in capacity-building for security forces, first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, which is partly why Centcom requested its participation.
British officials have also been working in the West Bank since 2006 to help train the Palestinian police.
Set against that is Britain’s historic role in the Middle East. For 25 years, Britain was the colonial power in the area known as Palestine in World War One, departing in haste in 1948 as the State of Israel was created.
There is still much bitterness amongst many Palestinians who blame Britain and the 1917 Balfour Declaration for what has happened to them since.
The UK deployment comes after a visit by US Vice-President JD Vance to Israel on Tuesday, where he said the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire was “going better than expected”.
Vance also warned that “if Hamas does not co-operate, it will be obliterated”, while refusing to give a deadline for when the Palestinian group must disarm – a part of US proposals yet to be agreed.
The two special US envoys who helped negotiate the ceasefire deal, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, appeared alongside Vance at a news briefing in southern Israel.
One of the points in US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan included the US working with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary international stabilisation force to immediately deploy in Gaza.
This point is yet to be agreed between the sides and would only happen if a hostage and prisoner exchange was completed.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages.
At least 68,229 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
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