Uganda’s parliament last month authorized an unprecedented deployment of Ugandan soldiers to Gaza as part of an international force proposed by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

“The President of the Republic of Uganda is ready to deploy in the Gaza Strip,” Defense Minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka told lawmakers in a parliamentary debate about the deployment, saying a formal status-of-forces agreement would be negotiated after parliamentary approval. The vote on the measure came after Israel said that troops from “friendly countries” could participate in the mission.

The Ugandan government has so far offered no clear public explanation for why it volunteered for the mission, what role its soldiers would play, or what Kampala expects in return. The proposal has raised questions from members of the country’s parliament, including opposition lawmaker Hassan Kirumira, who asked during the debate, “On which side is our army going to fight?’”

The decision to send Ugandan troops did not emerge in a vacuum, but comes amid a rapidly expanding security relationship between Tel Aviv and Kampala that included the 2022 signing of a formal defense-cooperation agreement between the two countries.

Internal documents reviewed by Drop Site News reveal for the first time the details of a years-long program by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, the country’s largest weapons maker, to equip the Ugandan military with an expanding fleet of Hermes surveillance drones, as well as a suite of advanced surveillance systems intended for use by Uganda’s Military Intelligence and elite Special Forces Command (SFC)—a branch of the country’s security establishment tied to the family of President Yoweri Museveni, and his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba.