From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Vance: US troops won’t serve in Gaza, International Stabilization Force still being planned
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.
US Vice President JD Vance says the International Stabilization Force envisioned under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan is still in its early planning stages, emphasizing that no American troops will be deployed to Gaza and that Washington’s primary role in the plan will be to coordinate among regional players.
“We’re in the phase now where we’re actually starting to conceptualize what that international security force would look like,” Vance says at a press conference at the US-Israel coordination center for the ceasefire in Gaza, housed in Kiryat Gat.
He reiterates that “there are not going to be American boots on the ground in Gaza,” explaining that the US aims “to provide some useful coordination.”
“How do you take the Gulf Arab States plus Israel, plus the Turks, plus Indonesia? How do you actually get those folks to work together in a way that actually produces long-term peace? The only real mediators are the United States of America. So that’s the role that we’re going to play,” he says.
Vance closes his press conference by urging people to pray for peace and noting that he plans to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem before leaving Israel.
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