JERUSALEM: An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday that Turkish soldiers would not be deployed to Gaza as part of a multinational force that is meant to take over from the Israeli military.
“There will be no Turkish boots on the ground,” spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters in response to a question.
US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the two-year war calls for a temporary International Stabilisation Force to gradually take over security of Gaza from the Israeli military.
The force has yet to be established and many countries are calling for it to have a mandate from the UN Security Council.
Asked about Israel’s objections to Turkish forces in Gaza, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said at a Manama security conference earlier this month that Turkey would participate.
Trump’s plan calls for an international force
gradually taking over security of Gaza
from Israel
Vice President JD Vance last month said there would be a “constructive role” for Ankara to play but that Washington wouldn’t force anything on Israel when it came to foreign troops “on their soil”.
Israel receives remains of officer killed in 2014
Israel said it had received on Sunday the remains of a prisoner, which Hamas says belong to Israeli officer Hadar Goldin who was killed in the 2014 Gaza war.
“After the identification process was completed… IDF (Israeli military) representatives informed the family of the fallen hostage Lieutenant Hadar Goldin that their loved one has been returned to Israel and his identification has been finalised,” the prime minister’s office said.
Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the coffin of a fallen prisoner that was transferred to IDF and Shin Bet personnel inside the Gaza Strip, the Israeli prime minister’s office said.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigade, said earlier it had found Goldin’s remains in a tunnel in Rafah the day before.
Goldin’s body has been in Gaza since his death in 2014.
Israeli media reported on Saturday that Israel had allowed Hamas and Red Cross personnel to search in an area under Israeli control in Rafah to locate Goldin’s remains.
Another Israeli soldier, Oron Shaul, was also killed in the six-week war in 2014.
His body was recovered earlier this year during the latest all-out war on October 7, 2023.
Goldin, 23, was part of an Israeli unit tasked with locating and destroying Hamas tunnels when he was killed on August 1, 2014, just hours after a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire took effect.
The army alleged Hamas fighters ambushed his team, killing him and seizing his body.
Israel had listed Goldin among the deceased Israeli prisoners whose remains it seeks to repatriate under the ongoing US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the latest Gaza war.
Goldin’s father said on Sunday that true victory in the current war would only be achieved when all prisoners were brought home.
“What this war has proven is that when we fight for our soldiers, we succeed. Victory means bringing home the hostages and bringing home our soldiers to Israel,” Simcha Goldin said in a statement.
At the start of the truce, Hamas was holding 20 living prisoners and the bodies of28 deceased prisoners.
It has since released all the living Israeli prisoners and returned 23 remains of the deceased in line with the ceasefire terms.
In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian that had been in its custody and returned bodies of hundreds of Hamas fighters killed in Gaza.
