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Indonesia is preparing to send 1,000 soldiers to Gaza within weeks, the first contingent of some 8,000 personnel that Jakarta has pledged to deploy to the Palestinian territory as part of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) under United States President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

Indonesian army spokesperson Brigadier General Donny Pramono told news media the first troops are preparing to reach the enclave by April, and the majority will be on the ground in Gaza by June.

But as the hasty deployment approaches, some Indonesians are questioning what role their armed forces will play in the mission amid Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

Indonesia is a seasoned participant in United Nations-led peacekeeping missions, but critics fear that without oversight by the UN, Indonesian forces could be used as “pawns” by the US – Israel’s foremost ally – to control Palestinians in Gaza and formalise the occupation of the enclave.

“We are afraid that Indonesia will be used as the buffer to control the Palestinians,” Shofwan Al Banna Choiruzzad, an associate professor at the University of Indonesia, told Al Jazeera.

“Indonesia has built a reputation in Palestine as one of the most active partners on the ground. It would be very painful for both Palestinians and Indonesians if they see the Indonesian army becoming an instrument of the occupation,” Shofwan said.

“The worry is that Indonesia will only be a shock absorber,” he said.

“Indonesia will only be an actor which is used to establish legitimacy [for Israel’s occupation], and worse.”

Complicating matters further is the fact that Indonesia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel owing to its long support for the Palestinian cause.

“Indonesia needs to make clear that it will not be in the sectors which risk confrontation with Palestinian factions, [and] it will also not be in the Israeli-controlled areas – because that will require operational coordination with the Israeli army, which means practical recognition of Israel,” Shofwan said.

‘Palestinians are seen as objects’

Indonesia – with the world’s largest Muslim population – was the first among members of the Board of Peace to commit a specific number of soldiers to the ISF.

Jakarta’s pledge of peacekeepers was then followed by Kosovo, Morocco, Albania, and Kazakhstan, although they have not said their troops’ strength in the enclave.

Officials in Jakarta have stressed the country will play a “balancing” role on the Board of Peace alongside other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan.

But, as a longstanding supporter of a two-state solution and an independent Palestine, observers worry that Indonesia’s stance will be compromised by its involvement in the Gaza operation.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto could also soon face difficult questions about the work of the Board of Peace and its plans for the reconstruction of Gaza and the future of the territory’s Palestinian population, analysts say.

University of Indonesia’s Shofwan said the Board of Peace and its approach to Gaza is fundamentally “colonial”.

“It is designed to achieve negative peace without putting the rights and voices of Palestinians at the centre, and Palestinians are seen as objects,” he said.

“They are seen to be something that needs to be controlled. There are no restraints towards Israel at all, so the design is very colonial,” Shofwan added.

The board’s executive committee comprises Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner; US Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East; Marc Rowen, CEO of Apollo Global Management; World Bank President Ajay Banga; former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair; and Robert Gabriel Jr, US deputy national security adviser.

Palestinian participation in the board has been siloed into a “transitional committee” of apolitical technocrats led by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) deputy minister.

Earlier this month, shortly after Prabowo signed on to the Board of Peace, representatives from some 40 civil society and religious groups in Indonesia met the president to discuss the Gaza mission, Indonesia’s state news agency Antara reported at the time.

Prabowo told the groups he was prepared to withdraw from the Board of Peace if it “fails to advance the goal of an independent Palestine”, Antara reported, citing Muhammad Cholil Nafis, vice chairman of Indonesia’s top Islamic advisory body.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also emphasised that the country’s troops will be in Gaza “solely to support Palestine’s recovery and its fight for independence and sovereignty”.

In addition to deploying troops to Gaza, Indonesia will also focus on humanitarian assistance and send several hospital ships.

But observers told Al Jazeera that Prabowo’s decision to join the Board of Peace reflected more his “personalised” style of leadership and his desire to be seen as a global player than a direct concern with the question of Palestine.

“We participated with peacekeepers in Lebanon and [the Democratic Republic of the] Congo, but now the new president wants to make Indonesia diplomatically stronger on the global level,” said Yon Machmudi, an expert in Indonesian politics and international relations, also at the University of Indonesia.

“This is also part of the motivation of the president to be involved in any kind of negotiations with the peace process,” he said.

“I think Prabowo truly wants to leave a significant legacy, remembered as a president active in global peace, not only in the Middle East but also in other regions, such as the Russia-Ukraine war,” Machmudi said.

‘It’s about maintaining optics’

Prabowo, a former military general once banned from entering the US, has found himself in the global spotlight since being elected president in 2024, starting with his decision to visit China on his first international trip.

He has since visited Russia twice, skipping a Group of Seven meeting in June to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the Indonesia-MENA desk at the Centre for Economic and Law Studies in Jakarta, told Al Jazeera that he believes Prabowo has been trying to get Trump’s attention.

The US president has a track record of responding to assertive and transactional leadership, and once said he gets along better with world leaders “the tougher and meaner they are”.

Courting China and Russia was one step towards Prabowo getting US attention, while signing on to the Board of Peace and deploying Indonesian troops to Gaza was another, Rakhmat said.

In the mix of motivations for joining the board, Prabowo may also have been hoping for a better trade deal with the US after Trump unleashed trade tariffs last year. The White House initially planned to levy a “reciprocal” tariff of 32 percent on Indonesian exports, which was later cut down to 19 percent.

The Indonesian president late last week signed a formal trade deal with Trump on the sidelines of the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, DC. The deal kept tariff rates at 19 percent, while Indonesia agreed to cut tariffs on 99 percent of its US imports. It is still unclear how the deal will be impacted by a landmark ruling on Friday from the US Supreme Court striking down the legal basis for many of Trump’s tariffs.

Rakhmat fears Prabowo’s ambition makes it less likely that he will push back if something goes wrong in the Gaza operation and Palestinians are negatively impacted.

He told Al Jazeera that Prabowo will likely “condemn” any operational drift in the Gaza plan, rather than withdraw completely from the Board of Peace.

“People will expect more, but looking at his past behaviours, it is unlikely he will do something extraordinary,” Rakhmat said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to India for what experts say is a “very significant trip” as he tries to reset relations between the two countries and find new markets for Canadian exports.

While the trip, which starts Friday, is expected to be heavy on diplomacy, experts question whether it will result in major economic deals to shore up Canada’s economy.

Carney has pledged to broaden the country’s trading partners as relations with its neighbour, the United States, fray. And India, with its 1.4 billion people, is a potentially large market for Canada’s vast petroleum and natural gas reserves, among other products.

But to build those economic bonds will require Carney to overcome diplomatic tensions and hesitancy about the costs of its exports, according to analysts.

“Canada domestically needs to figure out to what extent it wants to grow its oil and gas industry,” said Tarun Khanna, professor at the University of British Columbia who focuses on energy policy.

“Improvement in the overall relationship can provide incentives to both nations.”

Repairing a diplomatic rupture

Part of the hurdle for Carney is repairing recent diplomatic strains between his country and India.

The two countries engaged in a prolonged diplomatic freeze in September 2023, after Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau alleged that India was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist activist on Canadian soil.

India rejected the allegations as false, and both countries expelled each other’s diplomats.

A breakthrough came last year when Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Kananaskis, Alberta, to attend the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ summit in June.

Since then, relations have thawed. In September, both sides named new diplomats to serve as high commissioners to each other’s countries.

In the lead-up to this week’s meeting, more bilateral collaboration has unfolded. Officials from India and Canada have engaged in senior ministerial and working-level engagements in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), liquefied natural gas (LNG), critical minerals and supply chain resilience.

“This is a very significant visit and allows Prime Minister Carney to consolidate a reset that began in the relationship last year,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, a research institute.

Finding alternative trading partners

But the rapprochement with India also comes in a transition period for Canada.

The US has long been its primary trading partner: It is the only country it shares a border with. But since the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, the US has taken an aggressive stance towards trade with Canada.

Trump has stacked steep tariffs on key Canadian exports like steel, aluminium and automobile parts. He also suggested he would like Canada to cede its sovereignty and become a state within the US.

Carney has resisted such efforts, including by imposing counter-tariffs on US goods.

But in January, he gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he outlined his vision for “middle-power” states to break from the superpowers that seek their “subordination”.

“From the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just,” Carney said.

“This is the task of the middle powers: the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine cooperation.”

Carney’s trip to India, followed by Australia and Japan, is his first major trip to Asia following his Davos speech. Experts say the outing will give him a stage on which to spread his appeal for “genuine cooperation” among smaller economies.

“It allows him to take that message of middle-power diplomacy to India, Australia and Japan, the three most significant for Canada in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Nadjibulla.

The trip also comes at a time when, on the domestic front, Carney’s top priority is to strengthen economic resilience, make sure investments keep flowing into Canada, and protect industries that have been hit by Trump’s tariffs.

As part of that push, Carney visited China last month, becoming the first Canadian prime minister to do so in almost a decade.

A market for Canadian energy

Carney’s latest trip is expected to yield announcements on Canadian exports of oil, natural gas, uranium and critical minerals, as well as cooperation with India on developing nuclear power as a clean energy source.

The outreach effort is “part of Carney’s strategy” to diversify its economic trading partners and find new markets for its products, according to MV Ramana, an expert in energy and security at the University of British Columbia.

Canada is the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil in the world, and the fifth-largest oil producer overall. Its crude exports were valued at more than $100.7bn in 2024 alone.

But Ramana believes that negotiations will also centre on Canada’s uranium. The North American country is the world’s second-largest producer of the metal, which is key to nuclear power production.

“Canada is trying to position itself as an exporter, a petro-state of sorts — not just for oil and gas, but also critical minerals and uranium,” Ramana said.

India has a long history of nuclear cooperation with Canada, which provided it with a research reactor in the 1950s for its nascent nuclear programme.

It has continued to import uranium from Canada, and the two countries are in the midst of finalising a 10-year, $2.8bn deal that would ensure a supply of the metal to India.

Given that backdrop, Ramana said he expects to see announcements on small modular reactors for nuclear energy, even though there are currently only a few operating in Russia and China.

The first in North America — the Darlington New Nuclear Project — is in the works in Ontario, and Carney appears to be angling for Canada to become a leader in such small-scale reactors. But it won’t be easy, warned Ramana.

“These are supposed to be cheaper, but they also produce far less power. As a result, the cost per unit of power generation will be much higher,” he said.

Another complication is the fact that the licence for the modular reactor design is owned by a US company.

That means the US will need to be involved, said Ramana, a tricky balance as Carney continues to be in the crosshairs of Trump.

‘Combination of price and strategic decision’

With the largest population in the world, India’s already-huge energy demands are expected to keep increasing.

Khanna, the energy policy expert, said that means there is likely to be negotiation about fossil fuels as well during Carney’s trip.

“We don’t know what will materialise, but given the Indian energy situation, oil and gas is one thing that will be on the table,” said Khanna.

But India has also faced backlash under Trump about where it sources its energy supply from.

In August, the US president slapped an additional 25 percent tariff on India, doubling his tariffs on the South Asian nation to 50 percent, as a penalty for its import of Russian oil.

That was finally rolled back this month, and US tariffs on India were brought down to 18 percent, though that rate, among others, was overturned by a decision from the US Supreme Court.

Now, the current US tariffs on Indian imports sit at 10 percent. But experts have warned that Trump’s tariff policies have sown uncertainty among the US’s trading partners, including India.

So New Delhi is looking to secure its oil supplies, and Canada is looking for new buyers, Khanna said. But price will ultimately be the key.

“India is a price-sensitive market, so the Indian side will be looking for deals that secure supplies but at a reasonable price,” he pointed out.

If Ottawa seeks to increase its market, “then it’s up to them to see what kind of incentives they can hand out”, Khanna added.

Gaza City – Amid the buzz of customers in the Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City, Samar Abu Harbied stops at a small, makeshift roadside stall to buy groceries to prepare an Iftar meal for her family, to break their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

With no cash in her purse, the 45-year-old housewife asks the grocer if she could put the bill on credit, until her husband or son could wire the money to him.

“I have not touched a paper note for months. I don’t even have money to pay for a taxi. Now we walk a lot, for long distances,” Abu Harbied said.

Najlaa Sukkar, 48, was trying to catch her breath at the same stall, which is run by her son Abdallah, after a failed journey on foot to see a doctor for a post-surgery check-up and to buy medication.

Najlaa said she did not have enough money to pay the 30 shekel (US$9.5) check-up fees, and the only banknote she had, a 20-shekel bill, was so worn out that the pharmacist turned it down.

“I returned without receiving medical care,” she told Al Jazeera.

“At the pharmacy, they didn’t accept the banknotes as they were frayed. The taxi driver didn’t accept a banknote, only small change, which I don’t have. It is very difficult to get by. What a mess, we don’t know what to do!”

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are struggling to conduct their daily lives amid a severe cash flow problem imposed by Israel immediately after it embarked on its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

A US-brokered ceasefire that went into effect in October has brought little reprieve to Palestinians, who are still using worn-out currency they had from before the war, or must rely on a new system of electronic payments conducted through smart telephones amid limited internet coverage.

Palestinians in Gaza use the Israeli currency, the shekel, in their daily transactions, and depend on Israel to supply banks with new banknotes and coins.

Electronic payments

Palestinians were forced to turn to a digital payment system as a way to get around a severe shortage of Israeli shekel banknotes, a problem that has been exacerbated by the destruction of an estimated 90 percent of bank branches and cash machines.

The Palestinian Monetary Authority, working with internet service providers, has pushed for mobile-based electronic payments, including PalPay and Jawwal Pay, to help Palestinians overcome the liquidity problem.

Abu Harbeid said her son switched to electronic payments after he faced many problems using the 50 shekels per shift he was receiving while working as a night guard.

“My son, Shady, was receiving his daily wage in cash, which was worn and torn. We could hardly break it into smaller change or buy anything, as sellers don’t accept overused paper bills,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Moreover, the seller doesn’t accept it unless I spend it all, as they don’t have change. Now, as he is paid into his bank account, we buy everything through bank apps,” she added.

But digital payments have added another layer of hardship to a large segment of the population.

Most Palestinians still do not receive bank-transferred salaries, many lack access to smartphones, and those who have phones struggle to keep them charged in an area where electricity services are in severe crisis.

To add to that, there is still the problem of finding a good internet connection for the transfer process.

Abu Harbeid said a proper trip to the market requires her to have her husband or son with her to pay for goods. But neither can leave work to join her.

“I prefer cash in my hand; I could buy anything on the go,” Abu Harbied said.

Not only a liquidity shortage issue

Analysts say Gaza’s current economic reality started as a liquidity crisis, but has become an issue of transition from a regulated financial system to a fragmented survival economy shaped by scarcity, informality, and political constraints.

“However, as the months passed, the crisis evolved into something far more structural,” Ahmed Abu Qamar, member of the board of directors of the Palestinian Economists Association, told Al Jazeera.

“The black market now plays a dominant role in determining liquidity conditions. A small group of traders effectively manages cash circulation through high-commission cashing operations.”

He said that when money itself becomes a traded commodity, it signals severe distortion in the monetary system. “Cash, like any commodity, becomes subject to supply and demand dynamics. When it becomes scarce, its value increases beyond its nominal worth. From an economic perspective, this represents a structural disruption of the monetary system.

“The formal banking sector and the Palestinian Monetary Authority were sidelined. What we are seeing is the neutralisation of the formal monetary system,” he said.

Abu Qamar said the deeper issue was confidence – not just in cash, but in the financial system as a whole. “Cash is inherently difficult to track, whereas electronic payments are traceable and can be frozen or restricted. Implementing such a transition abruptly produces severe economic and social distortions,” he warned.

“Widespread selling on credit is not a sign of market stability – it is an indicator of declining incomes and weakened purchasing power. When debt expands rapidly without a parallel increase in income, the result is social fragmentation. Approximately 95 percent of households in Gaza depend on aid,” he added.

Profiteering from Gaza’s woes 

The war has paved the way for middlemen to cash in illegally on the financial woes of Gaza, residents said.

Sukkar said that when her husband or sons needed cash, they were often forced to deal with brokers who charge a hefty commission that could reach 50 percent.

“We lose our money to them for nothing; they steal from us under our full consent,” she said.

Many residents, like Abu Harbeid, also do not trust bank transfers, saying they prefer physical cash in hand.

“I ask my sons, where does that money in the account appear?” said Sukkar.

“Who holds our money in their hands? I used to see money and count it, the banknotes and the change. On some days, when there are technical problems with the bank applications, we get nervous about the possibility of losing the money in their accounts,” she added.

Abdallah Sukkar, whose family ran a well-known family store in the Shujayea area in eastern Gaza before the war, said families who receive direct deposit salaries often buy with bank transfers.

“But I don’t like this method; I prefer cash,” he said.

He said he accepts all banknotes, whether new or worn-out ones, and allows people to buy on credit, but admitted that all of that affects his ability to make improvements to the roadside stall he now runs in place of his family’s old business.

He also complained of unpaid debts, adding that debts had soared by more than 500 percent during the war, while his profits barely reach 2 percent. He said he had given out 20,000 shekels’ worth of goods to new customers, “all of [whom] have become customers during the war”.

“People don’t have money; I can’t turn them away when they come to buy food on credit. It’s already catastrophic in Gaza,” he said.

“From the beginning of Ramadan till now, I haven’t had banknotes and change, which affects the sales. I don’t have small change to give to people who have cash, so they turn to other stalls or shops.