The U.S. military has begun operating surveillance drones over the Gaza Strip in recent days as part of a broader effort to ensure that both Israel and Hamas adhere to a fragile cease-fire agreement, Israeli and American military officials said.
The drones have been used to monitor ground activity in Gaza, with the consent of Israel, according to two Israeli military officials and a U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. They said they were not able to share the drones’ flight paths.
Those three officials added that the surveillance missions were operating to support a new Civil-Military Coordination Center in southern Israel, which was established last week by the U.S. military’s Central Command, in part to monitor the cease-fire.
The truce deal, brokered by American, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators earlier this month, has been strained by a recent flare-up of violence in Gaza and lingering tensions over the exchange of deceased Israelis and Palestinians.
Throughout the two-year war, the Israeli military, which is backed by the United States, has extensively used drones to gather intelligence and mount its campaign against Hamas.
Though the U.S. military has previously flown drones over Gaza to assist with locating hostages, its latest reconnaissance efforts suggest that American officials want to have their own understanding, independent of Israel, of what is happening inside the territory.
The U.S. State Department, which oversees efforts to monitor the cease-fire, did not immediately respond to detailed queries about the drones. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Since President Trump’s visit to Israel last week, a string of top U.S. officials have been in the country in an effort to shore up the cease-fire deal, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Several Trump administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said this week that there was concern within the administration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel might vacate the deal.
On Friday, Mr. Rubio toured the new Civil-Military Coordination Center, which includes about 200 U.S. military personnel. The military said the center would monitor the implementation of the cease-fire agreement, and “help facilitate the flow of humanitarian, logistical, and security assistance from international counterparts” into the strip.
“There’s going to be ups and downs and twists and turns, but I think we have a lot of reason for healthy optimism about the progress that’s being made,” Mr. Rubio said.
Israel and the United States are deeply intertwined on security. Washington provides Israel with arms and funding, and the two countries share intelligence. Earlier this year, they also collaborated on airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites.
In the early stages of the war, the U.S. used MQ-9 Reaper drones in Gaza to support hostage recovery efforts, and shared information from those drone missions with Israel, pointing to where hostages might be held.
A former American diplomat and defense official, like some Israeli officials, expressed surprise at the latest U.S. surveillance missions in Gaza, given the two countries’ close military ties.
“This is a very intrusive version of U.S. monitoring on a front where Israel perceives an active threat,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama and as a special envoy to Israel on Iran under President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
“If there was total transparency and total trust between Israel and the U.S., there wouldn’t be a need for this,” Mr. Shapiro said. “But obviously the U.S. wants to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding.”
Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Central Command, said in an interview with Israeli television channel i24 on Thursday that the Civil-Military Coordination Center “includes an operations floor that enables us to monitor in real time what is happening on the ground in Gaza.”
He said they were “working very hard” to keep the cease-fire in place, acknowledging that the situation was “very fragile.”
Natan Odenheimer is a Times reporter in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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