In a grungy industrial park in southern Israel, a massive, repurposed cargo warehouse is humming with hundreds of American and Israeli troops, Arab intelligence officers, international aid workers, and diplomats and military personnel from across Europe and as far away as Singapore.
Their official mission is to help monitor the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But they have also been tasked with helping to craft ambitious plans for the enclave’s postwar future in line with President Trump’s 20-point peace proposal — disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza under a new, independent Palestinian administration.
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution endorsing Mr. Trump’s peace plan, and it also called for an International Stabilization Force to enter, demilitarize and govern Gaza. Some U.S. military officials at the facility are working on operational plans for that force.
A month into the hub’s operations, however, it is far from clear that they have made much headway. Officials liken the American-led Civil-Military Coordination Center, or C.M.C.C., as the operation is known, to a chaotic start-up.
Most strikingly, there is no formal Palestinian representation in the building, prompting criticism among some diplomats and aid workers who say that an outside vision for Gaza is unlikely to work unless Palestinians have a significant voice.
Some of those involved in the effort say that scenes of American soldiers tossing around ideas for how to rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip evoke uncomfortable memories of other U.S.-led attempts at reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the building in Kiryat Gat, about 13 miles northeast of Gaza, giant screens show aerial images of Gaza. Regular round-table working groups led by senior American officers cover subjects including intelligence, humanitarian aid and civil governance, according to Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command.
The center’s work is being overseen by a team led by Aryeh Lightstone, a Trump administration adviser currently based in Tel Aviv, who works on big-picture strategy for the future of Gaza, several diplomats and officials briefed on the matter said. Mr. Lightstone declined to comment.
Countries from Canada to the United Arab Emirates to Germany have sent representatives, as have aid agencies and nonprofits, according to two officials and an internal seating chart shared recently by one of them. Some officials with vast experience in the Middle East are sitting alongside others with none. At one point, a primer for newcomers was held on “What is Hamas?” according to three officials.
There are numerous whiteboard sessions, sometimes with light names for heavy topics, according to two officials. A working group on issues of civil governance broke up the week into themed days, including “wellness Wednesdays” for health care and education, and “thirsty Thursdays” for water infrastructure.
This article is based on interviews with more than 20 diplomats, other officials and aid workers who spent time at the facility, as well as on internal planning documents obtained by The New York Times. All of the people insisted on anonymity to discuss the coordination center’s operations because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a U.S.-backed cease-fire last month, stopping more than two years of devastating war that laid waste to the Gaza Strip, home to some two million people, and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. The conflict began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.
As part of the truce, Hamas freed the 20 surviving Israeli captives and agreed to release the bodies of more than two dozen others, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. And Israel pulled its forces back, retaining control of a little more than half of Gaza.
But the agreement did not formally end the war.
Now, the United States is trying to push both sides to a second phase of Mr. Trump’s peace plan: disarming Hamas, deploying an international stabilization force to Gaza and rebuilding at least the parts of the territory where Israel now is in control.
At least some of the preparations for that phase are happening at the coordination center, which was set up quickly by 200 troops from the U.S. military’s Central Command and opened on Oct. 17. The building previously served as a hub for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a much-criticized, Israeli-backed aid group that suspended its operations in October, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Lt. Gen. Patrick D. Frank, the commanding officer of U.S. Army Central, a component of Central Command; and Steven Fagin, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, share leadership of the coordination center. Maj. Gen. Yaakov Dolf is the Israeli military’s chief liaison.
Another issue the C.M.C.C. has been monitoring is the humanitarian aid entering Gaza, which Israel regulates. Capt. Hawkins, the CENTCOM spokesman, said about 800 trucks of humanitarian aid were now entering Gaza on a daily basis.
U.S. officials have pushed to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza fully under the center’s purview, but they have seen mixed results so far, according to five participants in the coordination center.
Two Israeli security officials said the Israeli military’s liaison, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, had not ceded its authority to the C.M.C.C., although U.S. officials were taking the lead on dialogue with the international community.
The internationally-backed Palestinian Authority has drawn up its own plans for humanitarian relief in Gaza and postwar reconstruction. But Palestinian officials have not been included in the coordination center, according to numerous officials briefed on the hub’s operations.
That reflects Israel’s insistence that the Palestinian Authority be prevented from governing Gaza after the war, a stance in keeping with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to block the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
In the warehouse in Kiryat Gat, U.S. troops occupy the top floor. The ground floor belongs to Israel. Between them is a joint floor also shared by international organizations and representatives of other governments.
The coordination center quickly became a backdrop for high-profile visits by Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
On a visit to the center on Monday, journalists were given a closely supervised tour of the building’s middle floor, American soldiers could be seen giving a presentation to green-uniformed Israeli officers about a Palestinian police force for Gaza.
A map of Gaza in the center of the vast room showed a “red zone” still controlled by Hamas and a “green zone” controlled by Israel. The yellow line — to which Israeli forces withdrew as part of the cease-fire — separates both zones.
One Western diplomat who visited the center compared its open-plan layout to a low-budget Google campus. Each morning, a senior military officer normally leads a joint all-hands briefing, adding to the start-up feel, several officials said.
The center’s efforts now include some planning for “alternate safe communities,” according to more than eight diplomats and officials — new residential compounds that the Trump administration is considering building for Palestinians in parts of Gaza still controlled by Israel.
Israeli and American officials hope the new compounds will draw Gazans seeking shelter and security to move there from the Hamas-controlled zone, weakening the group, the officials said.
It was not clear whether or when the compounds would be built. But several diplomats briefed on the initiative were critical of the proposal, questioning whether Gazans would be willing to live there, whether the United States and Israel would impose conditions on which Gazans could live there, and whether it could create conditions for a permanent partition of the enclave.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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