WASHINGTON: The United States will deploy 200 troops as part of a joint task force for Gaza stability, with no Americans on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, two senior US officials said on Thursday.

The officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the 200 would be the core of a task force that would include representatives from Egypt’s military, Qatar, Turkey and probably the United Arab Emirates.

The officials said the US troops’ exact location had yet to be decided. But they would develop a joint control centre and integrate other security forces that will work in Gaza to coordinate with Israeli forces to avoid clashes.

“No US troops are intended to go into Gaza,” said one of the officials.

Responding to a social media post, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that up to 200 existing CENTCOM personnel will monitor a Gaza ceasefire alongside international forces.

The clarification from the White House spokesperson addresses the first phase of a US-brokered Israel-Hamas deal announced by President Trump on October 8, 2025, which includes hostage releases and partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as approved by Israel’s cabinet earlier today. 

The officials said it is hoped the Gaza deal, once set into motion, will cool tensions in the region and create conditions for negotiations on more normalisation deals between Israel and Arab nations.

US President Donald Trump, in his first term, brokered what are known as the Abraham Accords — normalisation deals between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.

The officials said Saudi Arabia is a candidate for such an agreement with Israel, as are Indonesia, Mauritania, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday admitted for the first time his country played a role in the 2024 crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane, describing it as a “tragedy”.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight crash landed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 of the 67 people on board, after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the southern Russian city of Grozny.

In a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Putin said Russia had deployed two missiles to destroy Ukrainian drones on the morning of the incident, and that they exploded “a few meters away” from the aircraft.

“The two missiles that were fired did not directly hit the aircraft. If that had happened, it would have crashed on the spot,” Putin said.

Russian air traffic controllers advised the pilot attempt a landing in the Russian city of Makhachkala, but he instead attempted to land at his home airport and then in Kazakhstan, where the plane came down, Putin said.

“Russia will do everything necessary in such tragic cases to provide compensation, and the actions of all officials will be legally assessed,” he said.

Aliyev previously accused Russia of attempting to conceal the true cause of the crash.

On Thursday, he thanked Putin for providing “detailed information about the tragedy”, the Kremlin said in a readout.

Initial statements by Russia’s air transport agency suggested that the plane, an Embraer 190, was forced to divert after a bird strike.

Russia’s handling of the incident dramatically soured relations with Azerbaijan, an oil-rich post-Soviet state with historically close links to Moscow.

US President Donald Trump says the deal agreed between Israel and Hamas marks the first steps toward a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace” that will end the two-year-old Gaza war.

Yet, the agreement signed after indirect talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, a favoured location for Middle East peace conferences over the decades with a patchy record of success, is only an initial phase involving a ceasefire, a handover of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners inside Israel, and a partial withdrawal of Israel from the enclave.

Plenty of pitfalls remain after negotiators left for later discussions about some of the thornier issues on which previous initiatives have foundered, such as the full extent of an Israeli withdrawal, the disarmament of Hamas, how to guarantee that war will not resume after this phase — and who could provide such a guarantee.

Have the guns fallen silent?

Not yet. Trump demanded Israel halt its bombing when Hamas first indicated partial acceptance of his 20-point plan on Friday. That has not happened. Scores of Palestinians have been killed since then in airstrikes and shelling, particularly in and around Gaza City, the focus of a recent Israeli offensive.

However, the bombardment has been more sporadic since Trump declared a deal had been secured on Wednesday, prompting celebrations in Israel, where families of hostages were jubilant in Tel Aviv’s hostages square, and in Gaza, where people gathered among the ruins even as blasts could be heard.

How does this differ from ceasefires that collapsed?

While this is a partial deal, a notable difference from previous ceasefire arrangements is that there is no deadline for reaching a full deal. It does not set a deadline of a few weeks, after which hostilities could resume if talks falter.

The jury is still out on whether that makes this deal more durable. There are those among Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious nationalist coalition who are already talking of more war. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a staunch opponent of any concession to Palestinians, has called for Hamas to be destroyed after the captives are returned.

But on this occasion, Trump has been far more vocal in his determination to hold feet to the fire on both sides, leaving less room for Israel to relaunch its offensive or Hamas to delay, even if past experience counsels caution over too much optimism.

Trump announced his plan, standing next to Netanyahu in Washington last week, with what seemed a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer for Hamas.

Yet when Hamas gave only a partial acceptance, Trump immediately demanded Israel stop bombing. And as the days ticked by in the Sharm el-Sheikh talks, he warned Hamas, “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out” if it did not sign up.

By stamping his authority, Trump may have gone some way to answering the key question of who will guarantee this deal does not collapse at the next hurdle.

So what happens next?

The timeline is emerging but still seems fluid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the ceasefire would take effect once the agreement is ratified by his government, which would convene after a security cabinet meeting on Thursday.

An Israeli government spokeswoman said a ceasefire would go into force within 24 hours of the cabinet meeting. After that 24-hour period, the hostages held in Gaza will be freed within 72 hours, she said.

A source briefed on details of the agreement said earlier that Israeli troops would begin pulling back within 24 hours of the deal being signed.

Humanitarian aid to Palestinians should then start to flow. Calling for full access for humanitarian workers in Gaza, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations was ready to help and “prepared to move — now.”

Trump’s plan also calls for an international stabilisation force, which could start taking shape after a meeting of European ministers and top officials from Arab states in Paris on Thursday.

They were also due to discuss issues such as future governance of Gaza, aid, reconstruction and demilitarisation.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s office said Trump was expected to be in Jerusalem on Sunday.

What are the political calculations facing Hamas and Israel?

Both Israel and Hamas have shown a readiness to respond positively to pressure from Trump and others, but each side faces its own political calculations.

For Netanyahu, agreeing to the plan seems based on a calculation that he can stay on the right side of the United States, Israel’s vital ally, and win over an Israeli public desperate to see an end to the war, while conceding as little as possible to avoid alienating his religious nationalist coalition partners.

The 20-point plan, for example, offers a possible pathway, albeit highly conditional, to a Palestinian state, although Netanyahu has said that it will never happen.

Hamas has dropped its opposition to any deal that was only partial because of the risk of war resuming once hostages were handed over. It has also signed up to a deal calling for demilitarisation, which it had repeatedly rejected.

Hamas may be calculating that Trump’s determination is the best guarantee that war will not resume for now, while the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh have put the resistance group at the negotiating table to shape the future for Palestinians, even though the deal seeks to sideline it.