Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockade

Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockade

grey-placeholder Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockadea4de9770-ae60-11f0-bf6e-0db822206ec2.jpg Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockadeAnadolu via Getty Images

US President Donald Trump wants to advance the second phase of his 20-point Gaza peace plan

US Vice President JD Vance has arrived in Israel as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to strengthen the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

He is expected to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin negotiations on long-term issues to end the war with Hamas permanently.

The two special US envoys who helped negotiate the deal, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, held talks with Netanyahu on Monday.

Their visits come after a flare-up of violence on Sunday that threatened a 12-day-old ceasefire. Israel said the Hamas attack killed two soldiers, triggering Israeli airstrikes that killed dozens of Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump insisted on Monday that a ceasefire was still on track but also warned that if Hamas violated the agreement it would be “erased”.

Trump is said to have dispatched his deputy and envoy to Israel to keep the momentum going and begin talks on the second critical phase of the Gaza peace plan.

It would include the establishment of an interim government in the Palestinian territories, the deployment of an international stabilization force, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the disarmament of Hamas.

Vance, Witkoff and Kushner are also trying to ensure that the ceasefire agreement based on the first phase of the peace plan does not collapse first.

The New York Times quoted US officials as saying they were concerned that Israel’s prime minister could “void” the deal. and resume an all-out assault against Hamas.

Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament on Monday that he would discuss “security challenges” and “political opportunities” during his visit to Vance.

He also said the Israeli military had dropped 153 tons of bombs on Gaza in response to Hamas’s ceasefire violation on Sunday.

“We have a weapon in one hand, while the other hand is outstretched for peace,” he said. “You make peace with the strong, not the weak. Today Israel is stronger than ever.”

The Israeli military on Sunday blamed Hamas for an anti-tank missile attack that killed two Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza, followed by dozens of attacks across the region that hospitals said killed at least 45 Palestinians.

Afterwards, the Israeli army said it was resuming enforcement of the ceasefire, while Hamas said it remained committed to the deal.

However, four Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire east of Gaza City on Monday. The Israeli military said its forces opened fire on “terrorists” who crossed the agreed ceasefire line in neighboring areas.

Later, Trump told reporters at the White House: “We made a deal with Hamas that they would be very good. They would behave. They would be good.”

“If they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to wipe them out, if we have to. They’re going to be wiped out, and they know it,” he added.

grey-placeholder Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockaded5f40d40-ae60-11f0-b2a1-6f537f66f9aa.jpg Vance arrived in Israel as the US sought to strengthen the Gaza blockadeEPA

Since the Gaza ceasefire took effect on October 10, violence has flared up repeatedly.

Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who is based in Cairo, meanwhile insisted that his group and other Palestinian factions were committed to the cease-fire agreement and were “determined to fully implement it until the end”.

“What we heard from the mediators and from the American president assures us that the war in Gaza is over,” he told Egypt’s Al-Cahra News TV.

Haya also said Hamas was serious about handing over the bodies of all the dead hostages still in Gaza, and described the “extreme difficulty” in trying to pull them out from under the rubble due to a lack of specialist equipment.

Overnight, Israeli officials confirmed that Hamas handed over the body of another dead Israeli hostage to the Red Cross in Gaza.

The remains were identified as those of Tal Haimi, 41, who was killed by Israeli forces at Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on Oct. 7 during a Hamas-led offensive on southern Israel that sparked the war.

That means 13 of the 28 hostages in Gaza when the ceasefire came into effect on October 10 have been returned.

Twenty living Israeli hostages were also released last week in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and those held in Israeli jails.

There is anger in Israel that Hamas has not yet returned all dead hostages, with the Israeli prime minister’s office saying the group “must honor its commitments”.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

At least 68,216 have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

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