Gaza ceasefire live: Trump’s envoys arrive in Israel amid scramble to shore up fragile truce – Middle East crisis live | Israel
Witkoff and Kushner arrive in Israel – US embassy spokesperson
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner have returned to Israel, a US embassy spokesperson has said.
They are overseeing the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which they helped broker, and are expected to meet members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The US vice-president JD Vance said yesterday that he may visit Israel in the coming days.
“We’re trying to figure it out,” he told reporters, saying the administration wants to “go and check on how things are going.” Regarding the ceasefire, he said that “there’s going to be fits and starts.” Israeli media report that Vance will hold meetings with Netanyahu.
Key events
The Guardian’s global affairs correspondent, Andrew Roth, has written an interesting profile on Jared Kushner in which he explores his central role in the ceasefire negotiations and his extensive business dealings in the Middle East. Here is a snippet:
The soft-spoken heir to his father’s real estate empire has quietly become a key conduit for Trump’s outreach to the Middle East, leveraging his Rolodex of leaders in the region and positioning himself to win a lucrative windfall if the goal of redeveloping Gaza ever comes to fruition.
It has been a notable return to the political fold after Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, effectively swore off politics after the January 6 riots at the US Capitol that followed Trump’s loss in the 2020 elections.
Now, Kushner, who manages billions of dollars in investments including from Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in his investment company Affinity Partners, sits at the nexus of power in Washington DC.
“Of course there’s an enormous conflict of interest here,” said Matt Duss, the executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy, who described the influence-peddling in the administration as open corruption.
But, he added: “Part of what’s bizarre is that the Trump organisation is so deeply leveraged in the Middle East that the corruption could sustain the ceasefire. Because they all stand to make so much money there is an interest and an incentive to kind of stop the war.”
The administration has denied that there is a conflict of interest in Kushner’s diplomatic work while continuing to run an investment fund managing billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatari state funds.
Witkoff and Kushner arrive in Israel – US embassy spokesperson
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner have returned to Israel, a US embassy spokesperson has said.
They are overseeing the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which they helped broker, and are expected to meet members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The US vice-president JD Vance said yesterday that he may visit Israel in the coming days.
“We’re trying to figure it out,” he told reporters, saying the administration wants to “go and check on how things are going.” Regarding the ceasefire, he said that “there’s going to be fits and starts.” Israeli media report that Vance will hold meetings with Netanyahu.
Israeli troops are still occupying about 50% of Gaza, denoted on maps by a thick yellow line that indicates where civilians can go in the first phase of the ceasefire.
As my colleagues report in this story, civil defence officials said there was no way for people to know when they had crossed over the line.
The Israeli army says it opened fire on “several” people who crossed the yellow line – where the Israeli military agreed to withdraw to – earlier today.
Without offering evidence, the Israel Defense Forces claimed in a post on X that these people posed “an immediate threat” to soldiers operating in the Shejaiya area in northern Gaza.
It is not clear whether or not there were any casualties and we are unsure of the circumstances surrounding what happened.
At least 97 Palestinian people, according to Gaza’s government media office, have been killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza since the latest Hamas-Israel ceasefire came into effect on 10 October.
Trucks carrying aid pictured waiting at closed Rafah crossing
As a reminder, Israel announced over the weekend that the crucial Rafah crossing with Egypt would remain shut “until further notice”.
The statement by Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said reopening Rafah would depend on how Hamas fulfils its ceasefire role of returning the remains of deceased hostages.
Israel’s foreign ministry earlier said the crossing would probably reopen on Sunday – but this has not happened yet.
Rafah has been shut since it was seized by Israeli forces in May 2024, limiting entry into Gaza from Israel. Israel has repeatedly blocked aid from entering Gaza during its war, prompting accusations it has used starvation as a weapon of war.
Palestinian people in Gaza have received only a trickle of aid over recent months. During the war, Israel shut down entry and exit routes, largely blocking off food and medicine, which in turn caused a famine in large parts of Gaza. The US brokered ceasefire included a provision about a surge in humanitarian aid to Gaza.
We are seeing pictures on the newswires of lorries carrying aid queueing at the crossing this morning.
Israeli officials have been quoted in the media as saying aid is instead entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which has been one of the key routes for bringing aid into Gaza.
Gaza reconstruction could cost as much as £37bn, the US special envoy suggests
Steve Witkoff has said he believes it could cost about £37bn to rebuild and reconstruct the Gaza Strip after relentless Israeli bombardments reduced much of the territory to rubble.
“The estimates are in the $50bn (£37.2bn) range,” the US special envoy told CBS News. “It might be a little bit less; it might be a little bit more.”
“I happen to think that that’s not a lot of money in that region.”
The UN estimates that about $70bn is needed to rebuild Gaza after two years of Israel’s war.
There are promising early signs of potential donors for reconstruction from Arab states, European countries and the US, a UN development programme has said.
The US was by far Israel’s biggest arms supplier during the war, helpfing fuel the intense attacks across the Gaza Strip, but some European countries, notably Germany, also approved a significant amount of military equipment exports to Israel.
Two Palestinian people were killed by Israeli gunfire in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City on Monday, Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting, citing a medical source.
Jared Kushner on Monday told CBS News that Israel must help the Palestinians succeed if it wants to integrate into the Middle East, and that Hamas is looking to fulfil its commitment.
Kushner, who has no formal role in the White House, but is working as president Donald Trump’s emissary to the Middle East sat alongside US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and said:
The biggest message that we’ve tried to convey to the Israeli leadership now is that, now that the war is over if you want to integrate Israel with the broader Middle East, you have to find a way to help the Palestinian people thrive and do better.
When asked how they were sending that message, he responded that they were “just getting started”.
He added that they have seen Hamas “looking to honour the agreement” in place.
As far as we’ve seen from what’s being conveyed to us from the mediators, they are so far [acting in good faith]. That could break down at any minute, but right now- we have seen them looking to honour their agreement.
An Israeli official and US official has said that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to travel to Israel on Monday.
Donald Trump said yesterday the ceasefire he brokered was still in place.
The US president told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that Hamas has been “quite rambunctious” and “they’ve been doing some shooting.” He suggested that the violence might be the fault of “rebels” within the organization rather than its leadership.
“It’s going to be handled toughly but properly,” he said.
Trump did not say whether he thought the Israeli strikes were justified, saying “it’s under review.”
Fragile truce resumes after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
Welcome to our live coverage of the latest news on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli forces launched a wave of airstrikes on Gaza and an Israeli security official said the transfer of aid into the territory was halted “until further notice” as the fragile ceasefire faced its first big test on Sunday.
The strikes across the territory killed at least 45 people, Gaza’s civil defence agency and hospitals said.
The Israeli military claimed it struck after Hamas were said to have attacked Israeli troops operating “to dismantle terrorist infrastructure” in the southern city of Rafah.
The Israeli military said later it had begun resuming the enforcement of the Gaza ceasefire, signalling an end to the attacks, and an Israeli security official said the transfer of aid into the territory would resume on Monday.
Senior US officials – possibly including the vice-president, JD Vance – were expected to arrive in Israel in the coming days for what observers said was a clear effort to hold Israel to the ceasefire deal signed in Egypt.
In other key developments:
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Hamas’s armed wing said it was unaware of clashes in Rafah and had not been in contact with groups there since March, also saying it remained committed to the truce agreement.
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Israel said Hamas’s attack killed two of its soldiers – the first Israeli fatalities since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October.
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Hamas claimed to have located the body of another Israeli hostage, saying it intended to hand over the remains to Israel if “field conditions allow”. The militant group warned that continued airstrikes and shelling would make such transfers impossible.
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US president Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to travel to Israel on Monday, an Israeli official and a US official said. Vice-president JD Vance said on Sunday that he might visit Israel in the coming days, while saying about the ceasefire: “There’s going to be fits and starts.”
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the military to take “strong action” against any ceasefire violations but didn’t threaten to return to war.
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“Round-the-clock” contacts were under way to de-escalate the situation as regional powers scramble to shore up the ceasefire, a senior Egyptian official said.
