Turkish FM: Indonesia, Azerbaijan and others want to see us join the ISF amid Israeli veto

  Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says US President Donald Trump will have to intervene to stop what he says are daily ceasefire violations by Israel if Washington doesn’t want its Gaza deal to collapse.

“At some point, President Trump should have a very substantial conversation with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu… If they don’t intervene, I’m afraid that there is a risk that the plan can fail because of the daily violations of the ceasefire by the Israelis,” Fidan says during a Saturday onstage interview at the Doha Forum.

Israel insists that its forces have only responded to what it says are daily violations by Hamas operatives, including the opening of fire on IDF troops. The IDF also says it has shot dead Palestinian suspects daily who have approached the Yellow Line, roughly dividing Gaza into eastern and western halves controlled by Israel and Hamas, respectively.

He insists that Hamas has just about completely “delivered what they’ve been asked of” by returning all but one of the bodies of deceased hostages. They were supposed to do so within 72 hours of October 10, but the ceasefire agreement did offer some wiggle room for the possibility that it takes longer to find remains buried deep under Gaza’s rubble.

“I think [Trump] is going to have a good discussion with Netanyahu before the end of the year,” Fidan says, suggesting that Trump will lean hard on Netanyahu when the latter travels to Washington to meet the president in late December.

Fidan acknowledges the veto Israel has been exercising on Turkey being part of the International Stabilization Force for Gaza and confirms The Times of Israel’s reporting that this has upset other potential contributing countries who view Ankara’s presence as somewhat of an insurance policy.

Asked specifically about Indonesia and Azerbaijan, Fidan says, “They want [Turkey] to be part of the ISF because they know that we can play a leading role, and we can make their lives easier in terms of getting more legitimacy and support from the public.”

“Indonesia, Azerbaijan, and some other Muslim and Arab countries that we are working closely with — [Turkish inclusion in the force] is what they want to see, for their troops to be sent,” he claims.

While the US is looking to solve the issue of disarmament in the coming weeks, Fidan argues that the priority should be deploying the ISF along the Yellow Line in Gaza to separate Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in order to stop the near-daily deadly clashes.

The US is hoping that Hamas will agree in the coming weeks to a process that sees the terror group gradually give up its weapons, but Hamas has not given any indication that it is prepared to do so under the current political context.

In notably frank comments that softly criticize the US, Fidan says one of the issues that has complicated efforts to advance the Gaza deal is the lack of US bandwidth.

“One of the practical problems about this subject is that the people on the US side, who are in charge of mediation of the Gaza file, are also in charge of mediating between Ukraine and Russia,” Fidan says, referring to Trump’s top aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Fidan is careful to praise their efforts while acknowledging that the pair is simply stretched too thin by trying to solve two major conflicts at the same time.

Fidan clarifies that while Turkey doesn’t mind holding the responsibilities of a guarantor to the deal, the actual document it signed gives it such a role, and it is limited in what it can do to maintain the ceasefire, given that Israel does not allow it to be on the ground in Gaza.

Asked about prominent Palestinian security prisoner Marwan Barghouti’s family’s claim that he has been beaten again by Israeli guards, Fidan laments that this is one of “thousands” of cases in which Palestinians are allegedly being tortured in Israeli prisons. Israel has adamantly denied these claims and asserts that those in its custody are treated according to international law, but an audit conducted by Israel’s own Public Defender’s Office found that Palestinian security prisoners have been held in increasingly dire conditions since October 2023, with many suffering from severe hunger.

Fidan claims Israel is acting with impunity because it knows “that the international community is helpless in stopping them using force.”

“But there are other things that the international community can do,” he continues, pointing to the growing protest movements against Israel led by young people across the globe, along with the recent wave of Palestinian statehood recognitions.

“Mr. Netanyahu is harming in a very bad way, the future of Israel,” he claims.