US Vice-President JD Vance recently landed in Israel on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s urgent efforts to solidify the delicate Gaza ceasefire agreement. Consequently, he immediately began urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch negotiations focusing on long-term issues for establishing a permanent end to the prolonged conflict with Hamas. Two special United States envoys who already helped broker the initial deal, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, conducted parallel discussions with Netanyahu earlier this week. They traveled to the region specifically because a significant flare-up of violence Sunday threatened to completely derail the twelve-day-old temporary truce.
On Sunday, Israel reported that a lethal Hamas anti-tank missile attack killed two of its soldiers, tragically triggering massive retaliatory Israeli air strikes which killed dozens of Palestinians across the territory. However, President Donald Trump insisted Monday that the original ceasefire remained on track but simultaneously warned Hamas that the United States would fully “eradicate” it if the group violated the existing deal.
Therefore, Trump dispatched both his deputy and his envoys to Israel to actively maintain the diplomatic momentum and aggressively push for immediate discussions on the second critical phase of his complex twenty-point Gaza peace plan. US officials expressed genuine concern, according to The New York Times, that Israel’s prime minister might decide to suddenly “vacate” the current deal and consequently resume an all-out military assault against the Hamas group.
Pushing for Long-Term Stability
This comprehensive second phase involves setting up a functional interim government within the Palestinian territory, deploying an effective international stabilization force, facilitating the withdrawal of all Israeli troops, and demanding the total disarmament of Hamas. Nevertheless, Israel has previously asserted it absolutely will not participate in such expansive talks until Hamas returns all deceased hostages the group currently holds.
During their meeting, Netanyahu confirmed to the Israeli parliament that he would thoroughly discuss “security challenges” and “political opportunities” with the visiting Vice-President, emphatically stating that Israeli forces had dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on Gaza after what he described as a “blatant” breach of the ceasefire. “One of our hands strongly holds a weapon, but the other hand remains stretched out for genuine peace,” Netanyahu declared, adding, “You only achieve peace with the strong, not with the weak.”
Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, who currently operates from Cairo, simultaneously maintained that his group and all other Palestinian factions fully committed to the temporary agreement and specifically intended “to fully implement it until the end.”
He also confirmed Hamas was actively serious about eventually handing over the remains of all deceased hostages still within Gaza. Overnight, Israeli authorities verified that Hamas had indeed turned over the body of another deceased Israeli hostage to the Red Cross, raising the total number of returned bodies to thirteen.
Aid Deliveries Remain Critical
Meanwhile, the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) stressed that successfully sustaining the fragile ceasefire was absolutely “vital” for delivering essential life-saving humanitarian aid into the besieged territory. Since the truce began, 530 WFP lorries have crossed into Gaza, carrying over 6,700 tonnes of food, enough to feed almost 500,000 people for approximately two weeks.
Yet, a WFP spokeswoman explained that the agency cannot reach its daily supply target because not all necessary crossings into the territory remain open. The limited access particularly compounds the food situation in the north, where conditions remain “extremely dire,” preventing any large-scale essential deliveries. Israel, which maintains control over the entry of all aid into Gaza, briefly halted deliveries following Sunday’s immediate violence; however, deliveries quickly resumed Monday after significant international pressure.
Since October 2023, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza have killed at least 68,216 people.
