White House mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Israel on Monday and quickly went into meetings with officials aimed at solidifying the truce. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said US vice president JD Vance was due on Tuesday.
TRUMP WARNS HAMAS
US President Donald Trump said Monday that he would give Hamas a chance to honour the Gaza truce deal with Israel, but warned the group would be “eradicated” if it fails to do so. “We made a deal with Hamas that they’re going to be very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“And if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them, if we have to. They’ll be eradicated, and they know that.”
Late on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had “begun renewed enforcement of the ceasefire” and warned it would “respond firmly to any violation.”Israel launched strikes against Hamas in Gaza and suspended aid shipments on Sunday after blaming the Iran-backed militant group for an ambush that killed two soldiers in the southern part of the strip. The IDF said it responded by hitting weapons-storage facilities and other sites. It also said it dismantled several kilometers of underground tunnels. At least some aid supplies have now resumed, though the key border crossing of Rafah remains shut.The White House expected the deal to be messy but is optimistic it won’t collapse. Trump presented the ceasefire as the best chance yet of ending the war in Gaza, which has devastated the Palestinian territory and destabilised the wider Middle East.”It’s going to be complicated,” US vice president JD Vance told reporters on Sunday. “The best case scenario – meaning if this thing absolutely produces that sustainable long term peace the president and I hope it will – there’s going to be fits and starts. Hamas is going to fire on Israel. Israel’s going to have to respond, of course. We think it has the best chance for sustainable peace but, even if it does, that it’s going to have hills and valleys.”
Hamas said it remained committed to the truce and that it had lost contact with, and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for, any Palestinian fighters operating in Rafah. Trump suggested that could be true.
Under Trump’s internationally-backed plan, Hamas will disarm and cede what remains of its governance to a foreign-supervised alternative Palestinian administration. Hamas has yet to agree to those conditions, which are meant to form a key part of the next stage of negotiations to formally end the conflict.
