No plans to send UK troops to monitor Gaza ceasefire, says Cooper

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said there are “no plans” to send British troops to be part of a multinational force that will monitor the Gaza ceasefire from Israel.

The first phase of a deal with Hamas that will lead to a ceasefire and the release of hostages has been approved by Israel and has now come into effect, according to its military.

Cooper, who is meeting foreign ministers in Paris, said the UK will continue to support the peace process in other ways, including looking at getting private finance into Gaza.

“This is still a fragile process but it is one there is a huge momentum behind and a huge commitment to, so we have to make it work,” she said.

The US is moving up to 200 troops already based in the Middle East to Israel to coordinate what it is calling a civil-military coordination centre in Israel, according to US officials. This is intended to oversee the progress of the ceasefire agreement and to help coordinate humanitarian assistance.

Forces from Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, will also be involved, helping to observe the truce and report any violations. US officials said that no American forces would enter Gaza.

Asked on BBC Breakfast on Friday whether UK troops would be involved, Cooper said: “That’s not our plan, there’s no plans to do that.”

The foreign secretary was also asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent comments in an interview with Euronews, that Europe had “essentially become irrelevant” in ceasefire plans, and said the decision by countries, including the UK, to recognise a Palestinian state had been an “ultimate reward (to) Islamists”.

Cooper replied that the UK has had disagreements with Israel over this issue but that “the point now is that we need countries coming together to make peace a reality and to actually make it happen”.

She insisted that the UK has “already contributed” to get to this point in the peace process, including by putting forward proposals as part of a framework for peace and through the recognition of a Palestinian state.

Cooper said that moving forward, the UK would be involved in talks with Arab states over ways to get financial investment into Gaza, which has been devastated by two years of Israeli bombardment.

More than 67,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military offensive according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel launched its military offensive in response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed, mostly Israeli civilians, and 251 were taken hostage.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also emphasised the UK’s role in peace negotiations, and said on Thursday that the country had “played an important part behind the scenes”.

Speaking at a press conference on a visit to Mumbai, he added that the UK now “stands ready to play our part in implementing this [the peace plan], again with others, as we go forward”.

Cooper flew to Paris on Thursday from Northern Ireland with her German counterpart. Both ministers had been attending a meeting of foreign ministers from the Western Balkans at Hillsborough Castle near Belfast.

She told the BBC’s Today programme on Friday that they had held discussions about the lessons learned during the implementation of peace processes in their own countries in recent decades.

“What we know is that countries can come together to support peace, to resolve conflict, to rebuild nations,” she said, and added that she believed the reflections could help in Gaza.