Over the next two weeks, US military personnel will integrate representatives from partner countries, NGOs, international organizations and the private sector to the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), the commander of US forces in the Mideast announced, after the center in southern Israel was unveiled Tuesday by visiting US Vice President JD Vance amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
“The CMCC is designed to support stabilization efforts. US military personnel will not deploy into Gaza but will instead help facilitate the flow of humanitarian, logistical, and security assistance from international counterparts into Gaza,” said a statement from US Central Command, or CENTCOM.
“The CMCC will also monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement, featuring an operations floor that allows staff to assess real-time developments in Gaza,” the statement added.
Approximately 200 US military personnel were dispatched to establish the ceasefire coordination center, which is also hosting troops from Britain, Canada, Germany, Denmark and Jordan.
“Bringing together stakeholders who share the goal of successful stabilization in Gaza is essential for a peaceful transition,” said CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper, who accompanied Vance on his visit to the center in Kiryat Gat.
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Despite the presence of the foreign soldiers, the CMCC’s composition, role, chain of command, legal status and other issues have yet to be agreed on, and it is not yet clear which countries will agree to send troops into Gaza to ensure lasting calm on the ground as part of a UN-mandated international stabilization force.
A man stands at a podium in the the US-Israel coordination center for the ceasefire in Gaza on October 21, 2025. (Lazar Berman/Times of Israel)
The future of the Gaza Strip’s governance also remains murky. US President Donald Trump’s peace proposal, which the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement has been presented as the first stage of, calls for Hamas to be disarmed and the Strip demilitarized and handed over to a transitional, “technocratic” government.
According to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported, Hamas has handpicked half of the members of the Palestinian technocratic committee that will manage postwar Gaza, though a senior Arab diplomat denied the unsourced report.
The senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that the committee has not been finalized yet, as the Trump administration prioritizes the establishment of the international stabilization frce.
Those assembling the technocratic committee recognize that including names that Hamas will vehemently oppose increases the chances that the terror group will play a spoiler role. However, the idea that Hamas will be able to hand-pick the members of the committee is “blatantly false,” the Arab diplomat said.
Trump Administration adviser Jared Kushner speaks at a press conference in Israel, October 21, 2025. Vice President JD Vance is at left. (Youtube Screenshot)
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a key broker of the ceasefire deal, vowed that no reconstruction funds for the territory will go into areas under Hamas’ control.
“No reconstruction funds will be going into areas that Hamas still controls,” Kushner said while visiting the ceasefire center alongside Vance, adding that discussions are ongoing as to how to begin reconstruction in areas controlled by the Israeli military in the Strip. Israel currently controls a little more than half of Gaza.
“There are considerations happening now in the area that the IDF controls,” Kushner said. He touted a vision of a “new Gaza” that can be built “to give the Palestinians living in Gaza a place to go, a place to get jobs, a place to live.”
IDF believes Hamas replenishing ranks with lower quality recruits
Also Tuesday, fresh Israeli military assessments found that Hamas still has some 20,000 members in its military wing.
According to the IDF, before the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack, Hamas had some 30,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip, split into five regional brigades, 24 battalions, and some 140 companies.
These units have been systematically dismantled by the military over the 24 months of fighting in Gaza, though some, in the central Gaza Strip, were largely untouched.
While the IDF said it has killed over 22,000 terror operatives in Gaza during the war, Hamas has managed to recruit new fighters, according to the military. The military assessed, however, that the new recruits are of a much lower quality and have not undergone any significant training.
Palestinians watch members of the Hamas terror group searching for bodies of the hostages in an area in Hamad City, Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, October 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
The army last year stated that Hamas had been defeated “militarily” across Gaza, and is now effectively a guerrilla terror group.
Also, according to the IDF’s assessments, Hamas is still believed to possess hundreds of rockets, mostly short-range but including some that could reach central Israel. Hamas also has access to thousands of small arms, the IDF believes.
Additionally, the IDF previously estimated that it had destroyed just 25% of Hamas’s tunnels across the entire Strip since the beginning of the war. However, the military argued that the main focus has been on Hamas’s attack tunnels and those used as command centers or for weapons manufacturing — the vast majority of which have been destroyed — rather than on the numerous tunnels that Hamas uses to move around the Strip, especially in areas where ground troops never operated.
Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.
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