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Top US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel on Monday in a push to reinforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, a day after a series of attacks in the enclave threatened to derail the accord.
The visit, which had been planned before the weekend’s escalation, is intended to observe how Israel and Hamas are adhering to the deal and to discuss the next phase of the agreement, brokered this month by US President Donald Trump to end two years of devastating war.
A US embassy spokesperson and Israeli official confirmed Witkoff and Kushner’s arrival in Israel on Monday. US vice-president JD Vance said on Sunday that he also might travel to Israel “in the next few days”, with Israeli authorities expecting his arrival on Tuesday.
The truce came under severe strain on Sunday after Israel said two soldiers were killed when Hamas militants attacked troops in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, behind the so-called yellow line to which the Israeli military withdrew as part of the ceasefire.
Israel responded to the incident, which they described as a “blatant violation” of the accord, with wide scale air strikes on dozens of Hamas targets, and temporarily halted the entry of humanitarian aid into the strip.
Under US pressure, however, the Israeli military late on Sunday announced that it had resumed the ceasefire, with Trump reiterating on Sunday that the deal was intact.
The Palestinian health ministry said late on Sunday that almost 80 people had been killed due to Israeli fire since the ceasefire took effect 10 days ago.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Monday that he had delivered a message through international mediators that “any Hamas terrorist found beyond the yellow line in Israeli-controlled territory must evacuate immediately”.
Those “remaining in the area will be targeted without further warning, to allow IDF forces to act freely and immediately against any threat”, Katz added.
The Israeli military acknowledged opening fire on people who neared its positions on the yellow line, including in two instances on Monday in the northern Gaza neighbourhood of Shejaiya.
Hamas said it remained committed to the truce and accused the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using “flimsy pretexts” to justify violating the ceasefire and appease his far-right coalition partners, who are pressing to restart the war until Hamas is destroyed.
The flare-up came after days after Hamas released the remaining 20 living hostages and the bodies of another 12 seized during its October 7 2023 attack, which triggered the conflict. Israel in turn freed almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.
The two sides have argued over the whereabouts of the remaining 16 deceased hostages still in the strip, with Israel demanding their quick return and Hamas arguing that it requires more time to locate and extricate their remains from underneath rubble.
Despite the violence, the US has continued to project optimism about the deal, with Kushner telling CBS News in an interview aired on Sunday that Hamas was “acting in good faith” to retrieve the remaining deceased hostages.
“That could break down at any minute, but right now — we have seen them looking to honour their agreement,” he said.
Yet both envoys conceded that there remained several key issues left unresolved and yet to be negotiated as part of the ceasefire’s second phase, which is designed to help permanently end the war.
This includes Hamas’s disarmament, a full Israeli military withdrawal, the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force, and the creation of a new international and Palestinian governance system for the shattered territory.
“The success or failure of this will be if Israel and this international mechanism is able to create a viable alternative” to Hamas, Kushner said. “If they are successful, Hamas will fail, and Gaza will not be a threat to Israel in the future.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: ft.com
