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Israel is expelling two Dutch officials from a multinational centre that oversees the Gaza ceasefire, in an escalating diplomatic dispute with the Netherlands over Dutch policy on Israel and the Palestinian territories.
What has happened
The two Dutch representatives work at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Israel, a body through which the United States, Israel and seventeen other countries, the Netherlands among them, monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The centre also coordinates international aid and is involved in the reconstruction of Gaza. The two are civilian experts with knowledge of the region, based at the CMCC in Kiryat Gat, north of the Gaza Strip, and they have been asked to leave Israel within a week.
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, announced the decision. “I took this decision today in consultation with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he wrote on X, citing what he called a series of “anti-Israeli steps” by the Dutch government. “Our message is clear,” he added. “Those who turn against Israel will gain no foothold in the region. Israel will not allow it.”
The trigger: the settlement-goods ban
The most recent of those steps, according to Sa’ar, is a Dutch ban on the import of products from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Those settlements are illegal under international law, a position affirmed by the International Court of Justice, and settler violence against Palestinians in the area is regularly reported. The Dutch import ban is due to take effect on 22 September.
The dispute has been building. Only days earlier, the Netherlands had condemned Israel over bids for a controversial construction project in the West Bank, one of several recent points of friction between the two governments.
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The centre at the heart of it
The CMCC is part of US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan for Gaza, on which he reached an agreement with Netanyahu and Hamas at the start of October. Its work spans monitoring the truce, channelling humanitarian aid, and helping to plan Gaza’s reconstruction, making it a central mechanism in the current, fragile arrangements in the territory.
The Dutch response
The Dutch foreign minister, Berendsen, said the Netherlands regretted Israel’s move. “As far as I am concerned, an unnecessary action,” the minister said, adding that the message had been conveyed directly to Sa’ar. Berendsen also linked the decision to the political situation in Israel: “I also see this step in the context of the elections in Israel.”
The minister stressed that aid to Gaza remains badly needed, “precisely in order to take forward and implement, together with Israel and other countries, the agreements on aid provision from the US twenty-point plan.” While saying the Netherlands respected Israel’s decision, Berendsen made clear that the Dutch position on the import ban would not change: the government’s decision to bar products from illegal settlements stands, and the minister said he remained willing to discuss it with his Israeli counterpart.