PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Small Balkan nation Kosovo says it wants to commit dozens of its security troops to an international force for Gaza because its appreciates what NATO-led peacekeepers have done for its own security since the 1998-99 conflict with Serbia.
Kosovo's Parliament later on Friday is set to formally approve an earlier government decision to send the troops to the International Stabilization Force under a U.S.-backed initiative following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last year.
The ISF is yet to deploy to help maintain peace and assist in rebuilding Gaza under U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, which Kosovo has joined. Indonesia, Albania and Kazakhstan are among other countries that have promised to participate in ISF.
In Kosovo, contributing to the international force is seen as proof of how far the country has come after declaring independence from Serbia in 2008, a split which Belgrade still does not recognize.
Belgrade's brutal crackdown on Kosovo's separatist rebels prompted a NATO intervention in 1999 that forced the Serb troops out of the territory and paved the way for the peacekeepers' deployment under a KFOR mission.
"Our country has been a security consumer, meaning NATO countries have contributed to the security of the Republic of Kosovo," Defense Minister Ejup Maqedonci told The Associated Press. “Today we are entering a phase where we are becoming a provider, or exporter, of security.”
Maqedonci said the Kosovo contingent will consist of several dozen officers, including from demining units. The troops will be tasked with providing humanitarian support, security assistance and other duties determined by the mandate of the Gaza force, Maqedonci added.
“We are currently in the final preparations phase" Maqedonci said. He said a U.S. representative has helped with the preparation, including vaccination of troops, issuing of visas and other technical arrangements.
Kosovo currently has a security force of some 4,000 personnel that is being trained to become a small, professional military aligned with NATO.
Musician Milot Hoxha, 43, hailed the plan to participate in the Gaza mission.
“We ourselves have gone through such a transition and every small help for us has been very significant,” he said. "I believe it will be the same for them, that any kind of help will be positive. I strongly support this decision.”
Tensions with Serbia have been simmering ever since the war, with occasional violent incidents. The European Union has mediated negotiations aimed at normalizing relations between Belgrade and Pristina but these efforts have stalled recently.
The United States and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo as an independent state, while Russia and China have backed Serbia's claim on the territory.
FILE -Kosovo Security Forces parade during celebrations to mark the 18th anniversary of independence, in Pristina, Kosovo, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Laura Hasani, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — A fragile calm settled over parts of Lebanon on Friday as a 10-day ceasefire brokered by the United States took hold between Israel and Hezbollah, prompting thousands of displaced families to begin the journey home — even as uncertainty, destruction and Israeli warnings against going back to parts of southern Lebanon clouded their return.
By early morning, cars were backed up for kilometers on the route leading south to the damaged Qasmiyeh bridge over the Litani River, a key crossing linking the southern coastal city of Tyre to the north. Vehicles piled high with mattresses, suitcases and salvaged belongings crept forward through a single reopened lane, hastily repaired after an Israeli airstrike just a day earlier.
Drivers heading back to their villages along coastal highways cheered each other, flashed victory signs and exchanged blessings.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war displaced more than a million people. Despite warnings from Lebanese officials that they should not immediately attempt to return to their homes, many began moving toward southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire was declared. The truce appeared to be largely holding overnight.
In southern villages like Jibsheet, a trickle of residents returned to flattened apartment blocks and streets littered with chunks of concrete, twisted aluminum shutters and dangling electrical wires.
“I feel free being back,” said Zainab Fahas, 23. “But look they destroyed everything — the square, the houses, the shops, everything.”
Many did not believe that their ordeal was really over.
“Israel doesn’t want peace,” said Ali Wahdan, 27, a medic walking on crutches over the rubble of the emergency services’ headquarters in Jibsheet. He was badly wounded in an Israeli airstrike that hit the building without warning during the first week of the war.
“I wish it were different," he said. “But this war will continue.”
In the neighborhood of Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburb, entire buildings had been reduced to rubble after weeks of intense Israeli strikes. Ahmad Lahham, 48, waved the yellow Hezbollah flag standing on a mountain of rubble that used to be his apartment building, which had also housed a branch of Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
“We are at the service of the fighters," said Lahham, pledging his loyalty to the group.
He praised Iran and said its pressure in its talks with the U.S. led to the truce, condemning Lebanon’s direct talks with Israel.
“Only the Iranians stood with us, no one else,” he said, calling Lebanon’s leaders “the leadership of shame.”
A local government official in Haret Hreik said Israel struck the neighborhood 62 times over the last six weeks.
“We’ve been able to clear up the rubble of the partially damaged buildings, but for those destroyed, we will need special equipment,” Sadek Slim, the neighborhood’s deputy mayor, told a press briefing.
The area was gridlocked with traffic, with people coming back to check on their homes and Hezbollah supporters zooming on scooters, waving the group’s flag.
Meanwhile, in Al-Najda al Shaabiya Hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, officials there said Thursday was one of the heaviest days of Israeli strikes since this latest Israel-Hezbollah war began.
Hospital Director Mona Abou Zeid said the wounded continued arriving from nearby Israeli strikes until around an hour after the ceasefire technically took effect at midnight.
Among those wounded in the bombardment on Nabatiyeh Thursday was 33-year-old Mahmoud Sahmarani, who said he stepped outside his home to buy some charcoal for his shisha water pipe when an Israeli strike hit his five-story building, killing his father and cousin as they were peeling potatoes for lunch. All that remains of his apartment is rubble, leaving him and the rest of his family homeless.
“Israel should have withdrawn from Lebanon,” he said from his hospital bed, his left eye swollen shut and his head swaddled in bandages. “If we don’t get them out, they will continue to kill us.”
A displaced woman holding her dog sits in her tent in Beirut, Lebanon, awaiting an official order from Hezbollah to return to her home in south Lebanon following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Lebanese army bulldozers reconstruct part of a destroyed bridge that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Qasmiyeh near Tyre city, south Lebanon, to facilitate the return of displaced people to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Displaced people returning to their villages following a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, cross the destroyed Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre city, south Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Two girls chant slogans as one holds an image of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Friday, April 17, 2026, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
