While speaking in Israel on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance downplayed worries about the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas being too weak. However, sources told that some officials in the Trump administration are worried that the deal could fall apart.
Vance said
Vance said at a news conference, "What we've seen in the past week makes me very hopeful that the ceasefire will hold." Can I be sure that it will work 100% of the time? "No."
Vance also wouldn't say when all the Israeli hostages' bodies would be returned or when Hamas would give up its weapons. He said it would "take a little bit of time" and that Gaza needs security and humanitarian structures.
"If Hamas doesn't follow the deal, bad things will happen." "But I'm not going to do what the president of the United States has so far refused to do, which is set a clear deadline on it, because a lot of this is hard," Vance said.
Vance is in the area, at least in part, to make sure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sticks to the deal that the US negotiated. Some Trump administration officials are worried that he might try to stop it.
"Bibisitting."
A US official called it "Bibisitting." Another person said it was a "show of force from the highest-ranking person after the president himself" to make the administration's point clear that the ceasefire needs to be strong enough to "outlast inevitable skirmishes."
The sources said that most US officials who were part of the talks think that the truce is most at risk in the short term. This is why the trip had to happen so soon after Trump's visit last week.
The worries got worse when Israel said that Hamas had attacked over the weekend and killed two IDF soldiers. Israel responded with waves of airstrikes that killed dozens of people in Gaza.
US officials tried to limit the damage
According to the sources, US officials tried to limit the damage caused by the strikes and make sure the ceasefire was not in danger. Both sides accused the other of breaking the deal, but in the end, they both reaffirmed their commitment to the truce.
The vice president said on Tuesday that "mediating these disagreements as they come up" will be a "constant effort." He said that the trip "had nothing to do with what happened in the last 48 hours."
At the news conference, Vance was joined by Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who were both important to making the deal happen. The two are in Israel this week as the government starts to work on the president's 20-point peace plan for the region's long-term goals.
Witkoff told
While he was there, Witkoff told Israel that the country's response to violence from Hamas needs to be in line with the level of the violation, according to an Israeli source who knows about the situation. The source also said that Witkoff stressed how important the next 30 days are for the deal to hold and for talks to move on to the second phase.
An Israeli official said that the Israelis are putting more pressure on the US to disarm Hamas before the talks move on to the rebuilding phase.
Trump has said in public
All of this is happening while Trump has said in public and private that the attack on IDF soldiers on Sunday was not done by Hamas leaders but was part of a "rebellion." He said that some members of Hamas "got very rambunctious," but the sources say he thinks the group is still committed to the cease-fire and talks.
Trump did say, though, that he would "eradicate" the group if he had to.
On Tuesday, the president wrote on social media that "great allies" in and around the Middle East would "welcome the opportunity" to go into Gaza and "straighten [out] Hamas" if they keep "acting badly."
Trump said he told these unnamed countries "not yet" because "there is still hope that Hamas will do what is right."
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