Vance arrives in Israel to shore up Gaza’s fragile ceasefire
By MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY
Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance arrived in Israel on Tuesday to shore up the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, following a burst of deadly violence and questions over how to move forward with the plan for long-term peace.
Vance was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials and is expected to stay in the region until Thursday. His visit follows Monday’s arrival of White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Vance met with them upon landing.
Vance is also expected to meet with families of hostages whose remains are still in Gaza and some of the living hostages released last week. Earlier on Tuesday, Witkoff and Kushner met with nine of them.
Hamas said it has recovered the remains of two more hostages and planned to hand them over Tuesday evening.
The ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10. While it has been tested by fighting on Sunday and mutual accusations of violations, both Israel and Hamas have said they are committed to the deal. Trump has made clear he wants it to succeed.
Pressure for the ceasefire’s second phase
The head of Egypt’s intelligence agency, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, traveled to Israel on Tuesday to meet with Netanyahu, Witkoff and others over the ceasefire’s implementation, according to Netanyahu’s office.
The high-level meetings highlight the urgency of launching negotiations for the second phase of the U.S. plan.
Hamas negotiators reiterated that the group is committed to ensuring the war “ends once and for all.”
“From the day we signed the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, we were determined and committed to seeing it through to the end,” Hamas chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who is in Cairo, told Egypt’s Al-Qahera News television late Monday.
He said Israel has complied with aid deliveries in the Gaza crossings according to the agreement, but asked mediators to pressure Israel to deliver more shelter, medical supplies and cold-weather items before winter arrives.
Israel identifies another body of a hostage
Israel confirmed Tuesday that Palestinian militants had released the body of Tal Haimi, who was killed in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. He was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on the Gaza border. The 42-year-old was part of the kibbutz’ emergency response team and had four children, including one born after the attack.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel is waiting for Hamas to turn over the remains of 15 hostages. Thirteen have been turned over since the ceasefire began.
Under the deal, Israel is releasing 15 bodies for the remains of each dead hostage, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government. It said Israel had transferred the bodies of another 15 Palestinians to Gaza, for a total of 165 since earlier this month.
Aid into Gaza increases, while prices rise
International organizations said they were scaling up humanitarian aid entering Gaza, while Hamas-led security forces launched a crackdown against what it called price gouging by private merchants.
The World Food Program said it had sent more than 530 trucks into Gaza in the past 10 days, enough to feed nearly half a million people for two weeks. That’s still well under the 500 to 600 that entered daily before the war.
The WFP also said it had reinstated 26 distribution points and hopes to scale up to its previous 145 points across Gaza as soon as possible.
Residents said prices for essential goods soared on Sunday after militants killed two Israeli soldiers and Israel responded with strikes that killed dozens of Palestinians. Israel also threatened to halt humanitarian aid.
Mohamed al-Faqawi, a Khan Younis resident, accused merchants of taking advantage of the perilous security situation. “Our concern stems from the wicked merchants,” he said. “They are exploiting us.”
On Monday, Hamas-run security forces raided shops across Gaza, closing at least 10 shops and warehouses, and forced merchants to lower prices, according to a unit of Hamas focused on stopping collaboration with Israel and price gouging.
Hamas also has imposed more order on the streets, allowing aid trucks to move safely and halting looting of deliveries.
Nahed Sheheiber, head of Gaza’s private truckers’ union, said there was no stealing aid since the ceasefire started. “Trucks drive safely,” he said.
Gaza doctors say bodies returned with signs of torture
A senior health official in Gaza said some bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel bore “evidence of torture” and called for a United Nations-launched investigation.
So far, only 32 of the bodies have been identified, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Dr. Muneer al-Boursh, the ministry’s general director, said in a social media post late Monday that some had evidence of being bound with ropes and metal shackles, blindfolds, deep wounds, abrasions, burns and crushed limbs.
It was not immediately clear if any of the bodies had been prisoners; they are being returned without identifications or details on how they died. The bodies could include Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli custody or bodies taken out of Gaza by Israeli troops during the war.
The Israel Prisons Service denied that prisoners had been mistreated, saying it had followed legal procedures and provided medical care and “adequate living conditions.”
Israeli hostages released from Gaza have also reported being bound by metal shackles and harsh conditions, including frequent beatings and starvation.
In the 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people as hostages.
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
