Israel's Gaza invasion - Day 746

US Vice President JD Vance has said that Washington has not set a deadline for the disarmament of Hamas set out in the US-brokered ceasefire deal in Gaza, AFP reports.

“We know that Hamas has to comply with the deal and if Hamas doesn’t comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen, but I’m not going to do what the president of the United States has thus far refused to do, which is put an explicit deadline on it because a lot of this stuff is difficult,” Vance said during a press conference in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, where a US-led mission is monitoring the Gaza ceasefire.

US Vice President JD Vance has said that the US will not send troops into Gaza, reiterating a pledge made by US President Donald Trump and US officials multiple times, AFP reports.

“There are not going to be American boots on the ground in Gaza. The president of the United States has made that very clear. All of our military leadership has made that very clear,” Vance said at a press conference in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, where a US-led mission is monitoring the Gaza ceasefire.

Vance added that the US would limit itself to providing “useful coordination”.

US Vice President JD Vance has expressed “great optimism“ over the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, saying its implementation will require “constant monitoring and supervision”, AFP reports.

“We are doing very well. We are in a very good place. We’re going to have to keep working on it,” Vance said during a press conference in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, where a US-led mission is monitoring the Gaza ceasefire.

“I think that everybody should be proud of where we are today. It’s going to require constant effort. It’s going to require constant monitoring and supervision,” he added.

Hamas’s armed wing has said it will return the bodies of two more captives today as part of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel, AFP reports.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said it “will hand over the bodies of two Israeli prisoners that were exhumed today in the Gaza Strip at 9pm Gaza time (1800 GMT)”.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has called for aid routes into Gaza to be reopened as a matter of “absolute urgency” to allow crucial aid in for war-stricken civilians, according to AFP.

“The situation in Gaza remains very fragile,” Macron told a news conference in Ljubljana alongside Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob.

“We wish to remain committed, along with our European, Arab and US partners, to immediately obtain — and this is a matter of absolute urgency — the reopening of humanitarian sites and routes so that aid, food and basic necessities can be brought to the population.“

US Vice President JD Vance has landed in Israel on a mission to shore up a fragile US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, AFP reports.

“Welcome to Israel, Vice President Vance,” Israel’s foreign ministry posted on social media, along with a photo of Vance and his wife stepping off the plane.

“Together, the Promised Land and The Land of the Free, can secure a better future, including the release of the remaining 15 hostages,” the ministry added.

Vance is expected to meet top US Middle East envoys and military experts monitoring the truce on Tuesday.

According to Israeli media reports, he will also meet Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tomorrow in Jerusalem.

Abeer Etefa, Middle East spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Programme, has told a briefing in Geneva that the WFP now has 26 food distribution points open in Gaza — up from five on Friday, but still far short of the 145 it hopes to run throughout the territory.

Most are in the south and centre of the strip. “People are showing up in large numbers” at the distribution points, Etefa said.

She said that only the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings were open, but called for every entry point into the Palestinian territory to be opened, particularly those in the north, where the food situation “is extremely dire”.

“We don’t have an indication on when those border points will be opened,” she said, adding: “We haven’t gotten to the point where Gaza is flooded with food.“

Maintaining the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is key to delivering life-saving aid in the Palestinian territory, the United Nations said, repeating a call for all crossings to be opened, AFP reports.

“Sustaining the ceasefire is vital; really it’s the only way we can save lives,” Abeer Etefa, Middle East spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Programme, told a briefing in Geneva.

“We know it’s a fragile ceasefire; the most important thing is that it lasts.”

Etefa said that since the ceasefire came into force, 530 WFP trucks had crossed into Gaza, bringing in more than 6,700 tonnes of food, which she said was “enough for close to half a million people for two weeks”.

“Convoys are pushing through, food is getting to the warehouses and distributions are happening in an organised and dignified manner,” she said. Etefa added that WFP had not seen looting of its convoys since the ceasefire.

A total of 986 aid trucks have entered the coastal enclave since the ceasefire began on October 10, out of the 6,600 trucks that were supposed to arrive by Monday evening, Gaza’s Government Media Office has said, according to Al Jazeera.

“We note that the average number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip daily since the ceasefire began does not exceed 89 trucks out of 600 trucks that are supposed to enter,” it said, noting that it reflected “the continued policy of strangulation, starvation and humanitarian blackmail practised by the [Israeli] occupation”.

“We emphasise that these limited quantities do not cover the minimum humanitarian and living needs, and that the Gaza Strip is in dire need of an urgent and regular flow of no less than [600] aid trucks daily, including food, medical and relief supplies, operating fuel and cooking gas, to ensure the minimum requirements for a decent life.”

Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was to allow aid to enter Gaza.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has condemned Israel’s continuous violation of the Gaza ceasefire, Reuters reports.

“We condemn Israel’s violations and practices in Palestine, and its continuous violation of Gaza ceasefire,” he said in the opening session of the Shura Council.

Growth has accelerated in Middle Eastern and North African countries this year despite global uncertainty and conflicts in the region, according to an IMF report.

Despite the war in Gaza, the region was “able to withstand the big geopolitical shock of the last two years”, including neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt, Jihad Azour, IMF director for the Middle East and Central Asia, said in an interview with AFP.

The current ceasefire in the Palestinian territory is “an important and welcome development”, but it is still too early to know whether it will affect the region’s economic outlook.

“The impact on the region hinges on how this stability will materialise into improvement in the overall risk profile for the region and also what we see of potential reconstruction or post-conflict in Syria, Lebanon and in Gaza, and also later in the West Bank,” he explained.

The immediate priority is to assess the damage in Gaza and the reconstruction needs, with support from the United Nations and the World Bank, Azour added.

Medical evacuation of 50 Palestinians organised by the World Health Organization is expected today, Al Jazeera‘s Hind Khoudary reports from Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

“We know that these 50 Palestinians are either patients whose condition is deteriorating due to disease or who were wounded by Israeli forces and require urgent medical treatment,” she said, adding that the process was unclear.

“We don’t know if the Rafah crossing is going to be used or Karem Abu Salem. The Rafah crossing should have been opened since last Wednesday under the ceasefire agreement,” Khoudary said.

Israel has said remains of a hostage held in Gaza, returned by Hamas a day earlier, were identified as those of Tal Chaimi, a non-commissioned officer killed on October 7, 2023, AFP reports.

“Following the completion of the identification process … representatives of (the army) informed the family of the hostage, Sergeant Major Tal Chaimi, of blessed memory, that their loved one had been returned to Israel and his identification had been completed,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said.

Tal Chaimi, 41, commander of the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz defence militia, was killed on the first day of the conflict when Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023. His body was taken to Gaza.

A Palestinian has been injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire at the Qalandiya checkpoint between the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera reports, citing the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

Separately, 10 Palestinians suffered from tear gas inhalation during an Israeli army raid in east Nablus in West Bank, PRCS added.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has urged his Israeli counterpart, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, to “fully embrace President Trump’s landmark peace deal”, Haaretz reports citing a statement from the Treasury Department.

Bessent “reaffirm[ed] the strong ties between the United States and Israel” and “thanked the minister for his leadership in Israel”.

He also “underscored the historic return of the hostages and noted the great potential for expansion of the Abraham Accords”, the statement said.

US Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha departed for Israel yesterday as Israeli forces have continued to kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, according to Anadolu news agency.

The vice president did not take questions from reporters before boarding the plane but waved from the top of the stairs before entering the aircraft.

Netanyahu’s office said Vance and his wife will spend “a few days” in Israel and meet with the prime minister.

On Sunday, Vance declined to address the Israeli attacks but said the ceasefire would involve “fits and starts”.

The Israeli military says that the Red Cross has received the body of a hostage held in Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal, AFP reports.

“According to information provided by the Red Cross, a coffin of a deceased hostage has been transferred into its custody and is on the way to IDF (military) troops in the Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump has said 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, AFP reports.

“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.”

The United Nations was “concerned by all acts of violence in Gaza,” spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says, AFP reports.

“We urge all parties to honour all of their commitments to ensure the protection of civilians and avoid any actions that could lead to a renewal of hostilities and undermine humanitarian operations,” the UN secretary general’s spokesman said.

Israeli forces dropped 153 tonnes of bombs on targets in Gaza in response to what it said was a ceasefire breach by the Palestinian group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, AFP reports.

“One of our hands holds a weapon, the other hand is stretched out for peace,” Netanyahu told members of the Knesset. “You make peace with the strong, not the weak. Today Israel is stronger than ever before.”

US envoys have met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aiming to corral Israel and Hamas to get the Gaza ceasefire plan back on track after an explosion of violence over the weekend that threatened to derail the week-old truce, Reuters reports.

With even the first stages of the truce shaken by repeated flashes of violence, it is far from clear whether the US will be able to keep pressure on the two sides and maintain momentum to end the conflict.

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Hamas’s armed wing has said it would hand over at 5pm GMT (10pm) the remains of a hostage recovered a day earlier in Gaza, Reuters reports.