The delivery of troops to Gaza is waiting for Prabowo's instructions

JAKARTA - The Head of the Defense Information Bureau of the Ministry of Defense (Moeldoko), Brigadier General TNI Rico Sirait, stated that specifically for the issue of sending troops to Gaza is still waiting for the presence of President Prabowo Subianto on February 28, 2026.

"I can't update because I'm still waiting for President Prabowo Subianto to arrive on the 28th," he told the press quoted by Antara, Wednesday, February 25 evening.

He stated that "there are patterns that may be his direction related to the number, related to who, related to where, when, and so on, still waiting for directions from our highest leadership".

"And this has been voiced to all levels of the TNI and the Ministry of Defense, including the head of the TNI Puspen, the head of the Information Service (TNI matra), and all officials to refrain from saying things that may later even cause disinformation," he said.

Previously, during Prabowo's recent working visit to the United States, Indonesia signed a willingness to be part of the Peace Corps, a multilateral body formed by US President Donald Trump, to try to achieve what he called peace in the Gaza Strip.

In fact, Indonesia was appointed as a country whose military leaders would become deputy commanders of the International Stabilization Force formed by the Peace Agency, and Prabowo in his statement said he would send a significant number of Indonesian military forces.

Sirait on that occasion also stated that there was something to do with 4,000 state civil servants (ASN) who would be formed into Reserve Component personnel in April for six weeks of education and training.

"Now it has entered the registration and registration stage in accordance with Law Number 23/2019 concerning PSDN. It is a nature to remain part of the voluntary," he said.

He emphasized that the general conditions for becoming a reserve commander personnel were voluntary, so there was no element of coercion, obligation, and so on.

"We only provide a quota of the number of people needed from each ministry from the 49 existing ministries," he said.

He gave an example that it would usually be determined from, for example, one ministry A with a number of 1,000, ministry B with a number of 500, then the quota from ministry A might only be 50 people, ministry B only 10 people, and the quota is adjusted to the number of human resources there.

According to him, they will be selected to ensure that the person concerned is healthy, it is ensured that the person concerned has no physical conditions that limit it.

"If it's gender, whether it's male or female, it's left to the respective agencies or ministries. What is sent is in accordance with the registration carried out internally, yes, that will be processed administratively," he said.

The implementation of education and training for the Reserve Component this time, he said, will be carried out in two waves, each wave for one and a half months.

"So the first wave of 2,000 people, then it was implemented for one and a half months," he said.