JD and Usha Vance landed in Israel for emergency discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Donald Trump's proposed Gaza peace agreement faces growing uncertainty. The vice president and second lady touched down at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, where U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee welcomed them on the tarmac.
Trump sent his top deputy and the second lady to Israel after Netanyahu launched airstrikes in response to the deaths of two Israeli soldiers at the hands of Hamas fighters. On Sunday, Netanyahu confirmed that Israeli forces had dropped 153 tons of bombs on Gaza in retaliation, admitting that the operation violated the existing peace deal.
Tension Mounts Again
Jerusalem defended the strikes, calling them a necessary response to "blatant violations" of the ceasefire, while also pausing aid deliveries into Gaza for a short time. Both Trump and Vance said the truce was still "technically in effect."
They quickly sent top negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to the region to help mediate between the two sides.
Vance met with Witkoff and Kushner at the airport for initial talks and is expected to remain in the region until Thursday. On Wednesday, he's scheduled to meet Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem to discuss the next phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan.
Later Tuesday evening, Vance will hold a press conference in Jerusalem and is also expected to meet with families of hostages—both those still being held in Gaza and those recently released by Hamas.
Earlier on Tuesday, Witkoff and Kushner met in Tel Aviv with nine hostages who had been freed from captivity last week.
The meeting came as Netanyahu warned that Hamas had not yet returned the remains of all the hostages. Meanwhile, the group's chief negotiator insisted Hamas remains committed to upholding the ceasefire and bringing the two-year war to an end.
Hamas Still Holding Bodies
Overnight, Israel confirmed that Hamas had released the body of Tal Haimi, who was killed during the October 7 Hamas-led attack that triggered the conflict. Haimi, 42, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak near the Gaza border.
A fourth-generation resident and a member of the kibbutz's emergency response team, he left behind four children — including one born after the attack.
According to the ceasefire terms, Hamas is still expected to return the remains of 15 more hostages who died in captivity. So far, 13 bodies have been handed over since the truce began.
The Gaza Health Ministry, which operates under Hamas, said that Israel has transferred the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza as part of the ongoing exchange. The International Committee of the Red Cross delivered the remains to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. With these latest returns, the total number of Palestinian bodies sent back to Gaza has reached 165 since the exchanges started earlier this month, the ministry said.
Despite renewed tensions and limited strikes earlier in the week, Hamas negotiators have reiterated the group's commitment to ending the war permanently.
"From the day we signed the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, we were determined and committed to seeing it through to the end," chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said in an interview with Egypt's Al-Qahera News on Monday night.
He described the summit — co-hosted by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and former U.S. President Donald Trump — as "a declaration of the international community's will that the war in Gaza must end."
Meanwhile, the head of Egypt's intelligence agency traveled to Israel on Tuesday for talks with Israeli officials and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff about enforcing the terms of the ceasefire, according to Egyptian media reports.
Tensions have continued to mount despite the truce. On Sunday, Israel's military said that militants opened fire on its troops in Rafah, an area of southern Gaza that remains under Israeli control per the ceasefire agreement. The attack left two Israeli soldiers dead.
In response, Israeli forces launched airstrikes that killed 45 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which said that a total of 80 people have died since the ceasefire officially began.
Similar strikes followed on Monday in Gaza City and Khan Younis, after Israel claimed that militants had crossed the "yellow line" — the designated boundary of the truce — and posed an "immediate threat" to Israeli forces.
To prevent further violations, the Israeli military said it has begun setting up concrete barriers and painted poles to clearly mark the yellow line inside Gaza. Officials added that several violent incidents have occurred near those boundary areas in recent days.
