The CMCC and the US-Israel Alliance: Collusion or Enforcement Mechanism?

By Hanna Alshaikh

The fastest route to Washington no longer runs through Tel Aviv, as the saying once went, but through Kiryat Gat, a small industrial city in southern Israel. On October 17, 2025, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) established the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) there as part of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza. According to CENTCOM, the 200 US military personnel stationed at the CMCC will support stabilization efforts by facilitating “humanitarian, logistical, and security assistance from international counterparts into Gaza” and by monitoring the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. On October 28, 2025, less than two weeks after the CMCC opened, Israel launched heavy airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that killed at least 104 Palestinians.

The United States’ direct military presence in Israel raises questions about the durability of the ceasefire and the future course of the US-Israel relationship. The viability of Trump’s plan is already uncertain, undermined by the ambiguous scope of CMCC activities, by unclear prospects for the International Stabilization Force (ISF) envisaged in Trump’s plan and established in UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025), by inconsistent messaging from Washington, and by Israel’s recent violations of the ceasefire. Furthermore, aspects of the CMCC’s scope, especially pertaining to oversight over humanitarian aid distribution, have garnered criticism from Israeli officials. Reports now suggest the US may withdraw some troops from the CMCC in response to their concerns. Such uncertainties cast doubt on whether the ceasefire will survive—and whether the rest of Trump’s plan, now enshrined in a UN resolution, will ever be implemented.

Nevertheless, the role of the CMCC in the ceasefire and larger peace plan does signal a notable shift in Washington’s role. For the first time, US military force and resources will monitor Israel’s compliance with the ceasefire and potentially constrain the resumption of its genocidal war on Gaza. The CMCC thus represents a marked shift in the US-Israel relationship.

While the ceasefire plan might succeed in halting Israel’s full-scale genocidal war, the dangers for Palestinians in Gaza are acute. But the establishment of a publicly disclosed US military institution inside Israel—one tasked with monitoring the actions of Palestinians and the Israeli military—has brought to the surface long-simmering tensions in the bilateral relationship. These tensions are unlikely to subside and indeed may ultimately redefine the terms of US-Israel cooperation.

US-Israeli Joint Military Coordination in Context

Assessing the CMCC’s potential impact requires consideration of wider dynamics in the US-Israel military partnership. The CMCC is not the first instance of direct US military involvement in Israel. In the 1980s, Israeli and American officials began planning for US weapons storage in Israel. By 1984, the Pentagon had formally established the War Reserve Stocks for Allies–Israel (WRSA-I) for exclusive use by the US military, and in 1989, Congress authorized Israel to access those reserves in emergencies. Some analysts trace WRSA-I’s origins to lessons learned from the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel was narrowly spared from a major defeat at the hands of Arab armies by emergency US airlifts. WRSA-I eventually served to bridge such logistical gaps. The program fell under the US European Central Command (EUCOM) until the final days of the first Trump administration, when it was transferred to CENTCOM’s authority, a process that was completed in September 2021.

US-led construction for the Israeli military illustrates the depth of the countries’ long-standing collaboration.

WRSA-I has drawn criticism due to its lack of transparency. The first disclosed instance of Israel accessing the stockpile occurred during its 2006 War on Lebanon, for example, although dual-use for Israel was authorized nearly 20 years prior. Reports indicate that Israel also accessed the stockpile during its 2014 War on Gaza. Since October 7, 2023, the stockpile has expanded and has repeatedly supplied Israel, despite concerns about transparency and congressional oversight.

Beyond stockpiles, US-led construction for the Israeli military illustrates the depth of the countries’ long-standing collaboration. Between 1978 and 1982, the US Army Corps of Engineers designed and built two modern air bases in the Negev Desert, a project that the Corps described as contributing to the peace settlement between Israel and Egypt. Following the 1998 Wye River Memorandum—an agreement to implement Israeli withdrawals from areas of the West Bank as stipulated in the Oslo II Agreement—US records show roughly $500 million in military construction projects meant to enable Israel Defense Forces (IDF) redeployments from the West Bank to the Negev (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later admitted to sabotaging Oslo by expanding the understanding of “security zones” and by placing unrealistic conditions on the Palestinian Authority for security coordination) Between 2012 and 2013, the United States awarded a number of military construction contracts in Israel, including the little-known “Site 81,” located under a building in downtown Tel Aviv, and the Corps oversaw construction of “Site 911,” a multi-story underground complex at an Israeli air base.

Construction for the Israeli military involves long-term joint military coordination at those sites. For example, the United States has owned and operated an X-Band radar site in the Negev since 2008. In 2017, EUCOM opened a military facility described by an IDF official as an “American base,” which EUCOM denied, clarifying that it is a “living facility” in an Israeli base. In August 2023, the Pentagon’s contracting database listed a $35.8 million award for US troop housing at “Site 512,” a radar installation in southern Israel. In July 2025, the US Army Corps of Engineers began to build and renovate Israeli military facilities using $250 million in US military financing, an amount that is projected to expand at a cost of $1 billion to the US taxpayer.

For decades, Israel has accepted the resources and leadership of US military personnel, but disagreements surrounding the CMCC’s mission signal new tensions between these old partners.

The Civil-Military Coordination Center and US Regional Standing

On October 21, 2025, CENTCOM confirmed the CMCC’s role in leading efforts among “partner nations, non-governmental organizations, international institutions, and the private sector.” Humanitarian aid distribution has been at the center of Palestinian demands in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, and the success of the Trump plan hinges in large part on US guarantees for the entry of aid. According to US officials and stakeholders involved with the CMCC, the initiative “relegates Israel to a secondary role” in aid approval and distribution—a claim that Israel has denied—and the US military is launching surveillance drones over Gaza to monitor Palestinian factions because Washington is “putting its reputation on the line.” Clearly, Washington is not relying on Israel to implement the ceasefire in the absence of US oversight, and is also concerned with risks to its own standing in the region.

The immediate test of Washington’s coalition management is the makeup of the ISF, meant to operate inside Gaza while the CMCC coordinates from Kiryat Gat. Preliminary steps do not indicate that Washington is presenting a workable roadmap to the ISF’s formation or success. For example, the United States has indirectly conceded to Israel’s demand that Turkey be barred from joining the ISF, stating that Israel must be “comfortable” with ISF participants.

Washington has also disregarded the concerns of Arab allies. As Jordan has pointed out, regional partners will not want to participate if the ISF is tasked with “enforcing” rather than “peacekeeping.” Indeed, for Arab states, peacekeeping entails overseeing Israeli withdrawal and monitoring ceasefire adherence on all sides.

The UN Security Council resolution approved on November 17, 2025 establishes a mandate for the ISF, placing it under the authority of the Trump-led “Board of Peace,” and tasks the forces with the disarmament of Palestinian factions in Gaza. Hamas maintains that it will only surrender its arms to an independent Palestinian state, but the UNSC resolution only gestures to a path to statehood after disarmament. In this scenario, any Arab ISF participants would inevitably be drawn into armed clashes with Palestinian factions, which could trigger domestic opposition and unrest in those Arab states. Early in the ceasefire, Trump demonstrated more flexibility than Israel on the disarmament timeline and Hamas’s campaign against armed gangs, stating, “they do want to stop the problems…we gave them approval for a period of time.” Nonetheless, this flexibility falls short of defining a mandate for the ISF that respects the security considerations of Arab and other allies whom the Trump administration reportedly expects to join the force.

US-Israeli Tensions, Competing Narratives

The CMCC may be the latest episode in US-Israeli security coordination, but the scope of its mission has produced a backlash within Israel.

At an October 24, 2025, press conference at the CMCC, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked whether Israel is expected to “apply for permission from the Trump administration” to resume the war on Gaza, to which he replied, “there’s no nation on Earth that’s contributed more to help Israel and its security.” The question reflected Israeli criticism of the US role in managing Israel’s ceasefire adherence. Netanyahu in turn pushed back against criticism that the CMCC compromises Israel’s independence, insisting that “Israel is an independent state” that did not “seek anyone’s approval” for its military operations in Gaza or Lebanon. “We are in control of our security,” he added.

Whether the CMCC will eventually facilitate closer US–Israeli military cooperation remains to be seen.

Israeli critics have also resisted US involvement in resolving the situation at Rafah, where about 150 Qassam Brigades fighters are trapped in tunnels beyond the “yellow line,” a large section of the Gaza Strip under Israeli occupation. Washington urged Israel to allow the passage of these fighters to the Palestinian-controlled area in the interest of maintaining the ceasefire agreement, which Israel refused. Israeli opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman mocked Trump’s negotiation team for its attempts to broker an alternative solution, referring to its members as Israel’s “acting Prime Minister Jared Kushner” and “member of the security cabinet Steve Witkoff.” Lieberman’s comments reflect longstanding opposition to direct US-Palestinian talks—especially the Trump administration’s willingness to negotiate directly with Hamas— and to foreclosing the option of resuming high-intensity warfare in Gaza.

Whether the CMCC will confine itself to implementing its narrowly-stated mission or eventually expand to facilitate closer US–Israeli military cooperation remains to be seen. Recent news accounts indicate that the CMCC is currently located in a building that allocates one floor to the US-led project, one to representatives from involved states and non-governmental organizations, and another to the Israeli military, but the United States also reportedly is exploring the option of establishing an exclusive US military base near Gaza, a step framed by Israeli media as a means of bypassing the IDF to ensure the plan’s implementation. CENTCOM has denied that the United States has plans to build such a base, but it is apparent that a tug-of-war over narratives about the ceasefire and peace plan, the CMCC, and who calls the shots is playing out between the allies.

The Cost of War and Peace

Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided $21.7 billion in military aid and spent between $9.65–$12.07 billion on regional defense support for Israel, in addition to pending arms sales for tens of billions of dollars and requests for access to the WRSA-I stockpile.

Despite this extraordinary level of investment, Israel has doubled down on virtually all of Washington’s attempts to rein in its behavior or achieve diplomatic successes, from President Joe Biden’s Rafah “red line” to Israel’s repeated rejection of US ceasefire proposals, violations of the current Trump plan, and through its public objections to the CMCC. The result is a widening gap between the scale of US support and the undeniable limits of US power to restrain Israel through merely talking it out. Washington is paying a high price, both literally and figuratively, for Israel’s regional war.

Motivated by the preservation of its strategic interests rather than humanitarian concerns, the United States appears to have concluded that a return to full-scale genocidal war in Gaza is no longer acceptable. Israel’s September 9, 2025 attack on Qatar raised the stakes in terms of US standing, alarming the very partners upon whom Washington relies for security coordination, aid funding and distribution, and mediation. Unwilling to use the most impactful form of leverage at its disposal—namely, attaching political conditions to military aid— the United States has found itself with no way forward but direct management—hence, the CMCC.

Through monitoring protocols, the presence of partner states, and dependence on international forces for Gaza, Washington is attempting to limit Israeli violence to a level that key allies will tolerate but that does not constantly bring the region to the brink of implosion. The likely outcome is not an end to Israeli violence in Gaza, but a pattern of intermittent lower-intensity warfare, resembling Israel’s ceasefire violations in Lebanon, where Israeli forces conduct near-daily airspace incursions and cross-border attacks. Even if short-lived, the CMCC’s establishment reflects a new reality. Regional states and other parties concerned by Israel’s conduct in the region—including Hamas—have given up any hope of achieving de-escalation through engagement with Netanyahu’s government and are now appealing directly to Washington to restrain the violence of its long-term ally.

(For more information on the author Hanna Alshaikh click this link. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.)