The State Department announced on Friday that Ambassador Steven Fagin will serve as the civilian lead of the Civil-Military Coordination Center, which is supporting the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s 20 Point Peace Plan for Gaza.
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister Counselor, Ambassador Fagin has been US Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen since May 2022. He was previously Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Baghdad and Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Erbil, Director of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, and Director of the Regional Affairs Office in the Department’s South and Central Asia Bureau.
Since joining the Foreign Service in 1997, he has also served abroad in Brussels, Islamabad, Astana, Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Minsk, Tbilisi, and Cairo, and in Washington as a Pakistan Desk Officer and Special Assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nick Burns.
The announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Civil-Military Coordination Center facility and spoke to reporters,
"We are very committed to Israel's security. We want to ensure that there is no Gaza that is a risk to Israel. We want people to live in Gaza without Hamas, so that they won't be terrorized by Hamas," said Rubio, adding, "Hamas will be fully demilitarized. That is the agreement they signed on. We don't want to see any threats coming out against Israel from the areas where Hamas is still in control."
Rubio also referred to the initiative to establish an international task force in Gaza and noted that the list of countries that will participate in it has not yet been formulated.
"I will not reveal the list, but there are many countries that want to take part," he said. "However, many gaps must be closed, such as what the mandate of the force is, what its authority is, who will be responsible for it and what are its sources of funding." He emphasized that "this force must be one that is acceptable to Israel."
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)