Donald Trump warned Hamas it would meet a "fast, furious and brutal" end if it breaches the Gaza ceasefire deal, as his Vice President visited Israel to keep the truce on track.
JD Vance is expected to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow in a US push to move to the next phase of peace plan. Mr Vance said things were "in a very good place" despite a wave of Israeli air strikes at the weekend.
US troops are manning a new "co-operation centre" opened by Mr Vance in Israel, where he said they would help "begin the plan to rebuild Gaza". The next stages would involve ending Hamas rule in Gaza and handing power to a Palestinian committee.
The first stage, though, still requires Hamas to hand over the remains of more than a dozen hostages – with two more being transferred tonight. Israel has delayed opening aid routes into Gaza, with the World Food Programme warning on Tuesday that not enough supplies were arriving.
Mr Trump claimed US allies had offered to help "straighten out Hamas" if it breached the agreement. "There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be fast, furious and brutal," he wrote on social media.
Mr Vance, though, said events since the truce took effect had given him "great optimism the ceasefire's going to hold". US envoy Steve Witkoff added: "We are exceeding where we thought we would be at this time."
A future peacekeeping force for Gaza is expected to include troops from Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Indonesia, but not the US. "There are not going to be American boots on the ground in Gaza," Mr Vance said. "The President of the United States has made that very clear."
Mr Vance’s trip comes days after the most dangerous breach of the ceasefire, in which at least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks following a disputed incident when two Israeli soldiers died. The New York Times reported that Mr Trump's administration is concerned that Israel is trying to sink the peace deal.
Mr Vance's plans include a visit to Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, a source told The National. He will meet Mr Netanyahu and then President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Senior Trump administration officials Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel on Monday. The pair have met Israeli former hostages and Mr Netanyahu.
In a further sign of pressure being applied to the Israeli leadership, Egypt's head of intelligence was also in the country to meet Mr Netanyahu and Mr Witkoff, Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News reported.
Mr Trump has this month led a widely supported effort to end the war, which has resulted in the release of all living Israeli hostages held in Gaza in return for the freedom of almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails. Efforts to retrieve the bodies of dead Israeli hostages are continuing, with Israel accusing Hamas of stalling.
The Red Cross said on Tuesday it enabled the transfer of the bodies of 15 Palestinians from Israel to Gaza as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, taking the total handed over to 165.
Hamas, which is working alongside a regional mission to repatriate the dead, says it is sticking by the ceasefire and that it is struggling to find bodies because Israel is not allowing heavy equipment into the strip. Other points of tension include Israel’s restrictions on aid entering Gaza and the status of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt.
About 990 aid lorries have entered the strip since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, according to Gaza's government media office. The office said 6,600 lorries were supposed to have entered by Monday evening under the truce agreement.
Mr Vance's trip comes as leaders in the region sound the alarm about the future of the peace deal. Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, a central mediator of the truce, accused Israel of breaching the agreement with its deadly strikes on Hamas positions on Sunday.
“We reiterate our condemnation of all Israeli violations and practices in Palestine, particularly the transformation of the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human life and the continued violation of the ceasefire,” Sheikh Tamim said in an annual address to Qatar's Shura Council legislative body.
The UN's World Food Programme repeated calls for all border crossings into Gaza to be opened so more aid can enter. The UN has said there is famine in parts of the enclave.
“Sustaining the ceasefire is vital. Really, it's the only way we can save lives,” said Abeer Etefa, the agency's Middle East spokeswoman.
