Six countries have now pledged troops for Gaza. Uganda's parliament voted last
Ugandan MPs approved sending the country's defence forces to the international stabilisation force in Gaza on Thursday. They join Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Indonesia and Albania.
The international stabilisation force for Gaza has gained another country. Uganda’s parliament approved the deployment of the UPDF, the country’s defence forces, on Thursday, on a motion tabled by defence minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka and taken in a plenary sitting chaired by deputy speaker Thomas Tayebwa.
It is the first time Kampala has publicly signalled it is willing to take part. Trump is reported to have called President Yoweri Museveni in July asking for exactly that.
Who has pledged soldiers so far
With Uganda, six countries have now committed: Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Indonesia, Albania and Uganda. The list is deliberately mixed, and that is half an explanation of how hard this is. The force has to be acceptable to Israel, to Arab states and to whatever administration survives in Gaza, all at once, and a mostly Western contingent was ruled out from the start.
None of the six has announced troop numbers, timelines or rules of engagement. Passing a parliamentary motion is the easy part.
Where this fits
The force belongs to the Board of Peace plan and depends on things still unsettled on the ground. The agreement calling for Hamas to disarm was announced this week, but Netanyahu has said Israeli troops will not withdraw before the weapons are handed over, and it is hard to picture an international force moving in before that sequence closes.
Running underneath all of it is the count that measures these months: UNICEF recorded 300 children killed in Gaza in the 300 days since the ceasefire.
Image: Andrew Regan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
