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Marrakech – A delegation of roughly 30 Moroccan officers entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, marking the first field tour by the Moroccan military.
According to a report aired Thursday by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11, the officers visited the area where troops and soldiers are expected to operate as part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) Joint Command.
Correspondent Itay Blumental, reporting on Kan’s “This Morning” program on Reshet Bet, described the visit as part of the preparation for the entry of Moroccan forces into the enclave. It also serves the parallel track now taking shape inside Morocco itself: hosting and managing the foundational training of the multinational force expected to deploy to Gaza.
That second element had surfaced two days earlier. In its July 21 evening edition, Kan 11 reported that the first foundational training cycle of the ISF would take place in the coming weeks on Moroccan soil, with Moroccan personnel responsible for training thousands of soldiers destined for the Strip.
The location was not the original plan. According to the broadcaster, the Board of Peace initially intended to hold the force’s establishment training in Jordan, but the escalation with Iran and the fact that American bases across the Middle East had become targets prompted a decision to move the exercises to Morocco.
Israeli sources told Kan 11 that the Moroccans have treated the mission seriously, dispatching officers to the ISF headquarters and to Israel, and that Morocco now represents the most significant army showing readiness to operate in Gaza in the day after.
Representatives from the American command in Kiryat Gat traveled to Rabat in recent days to plan the first training cycle alongside Moroccan army officers, per the same report. The program is expected to include live-fire exercises, physical conditioning, and further instruction.
Board of Peace officials told the broadcaster that Morocco is preparing to send roughly 500 soldiers to Gaza. Four countries have so far agreed to contribute troops – Morocco, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, and Albania – while Indonesia, which previously pledged around 800 soldiers, has not joined the force and has not submitted a request to reach the Kiryat Gat headquarters.
The troops are expected to operate first in Israeli-controlled territory, securing the district described as “New Rafah,” which the United Arab Emirates is to build and which is to be defined “clean of Hamas.”
Progress on the ground remains conditional. Kan 11 noted that the ISF base inside Gaza has been designed and could break ground at any moment, but the Israeli political echelon has withheld the required green light, a consequence of a decision not to advance future plans in the Strip until Hamas meets its commitment to disarm.
No date has been fixed for the entry of foreign troops, though the earliest estimate places it at the start of next year, likely after Israel’s October Knesset election.
Morocco signed its Participating Country Agreement with the ISF on July 15, becoming the first Arab country to join a mission whose long-term goal is a force of roughly 20,000 troops and 12,000 trained police officers, beginning in Gaza’s Rafah sector.
Under that accord, the North African country will deploy senior armed forces officers to the ISF Joint Command, along with Royal Gendarmerie and DGSN personnel, and establish a military field hospital in the enclave.
