Vice President JD Vance visited Israel on Tuesday and said it would take time to recover all of the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages under the rubble in Gaza, contradicting previous Israeli claims that Hamas was violating the ceasefire deal by not handing over all of the remains.
“A lot of these hostages are buried under thousands of pounds of rubble. Some of the hostages, nobody even knows where they are,” Vance told reporters at the new US-led Civilian Military Cooperation Center (CMCC) in southern Israel, from where the US military will oversee the Gaza ceasefire.
Israel initially accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by not immediately handing over all 28 of the bodies, but Israeli officials were aware that not all of the remains would be released right away, and the deal created a mechanism for sharing information on recovering the bodies. Israel received two more bodies on Tuesday, and if they are confirmed to be Israelis, that means 13 bodies remain in Gaza.
When asked to set a deadline for Hamas to find all the bodies, Vance declined. “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,” he said.
Hamas’s political leader, Khalil al-Hayya, who is based in Qatar, said on Tuesday that Hamas was ready to continue recovering the bodies of Israeli captives if given more time and heavy equipment to dig through the rubble. “We are ready to recover and hand over all the bodies according to the agreement; we have no desire to keep anyone with us — let them return to their relatives, and our martyrs will also return and be buried with dignity,” he said.
Israel has been releasing 15 bodies of deceased Palestinians for every one Israeli body that it receives. So far, Israel has sent 165 bodies into Gaza, and some have shown signs of torture and execution.
During his press conference, Vance also insisted that the ceasefire deal was going well despite Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza, which have killed at least 80 Palestinians since the truce went into effect. “What we’ve seen the past week gives me great optimism the ceasefire is going to hold, and if we get from where we were a week ago to a long-term, durable peace between Israel and Gaza, there are going to be hills and valleys,” he said.
Vance also insisted that Hamas must “disarm” and threatened the group with “obliteration” if it didn’t, echoing recent comments from President Trump. “Right now, where I stand, I feel confident that we’re going to be in a place where this peace lasts, where it’s durable, and if Hamas doesn’t cooperate, then, as the United States has said, Hamas is going to be obliterated,” he said.
While Vance’s warnings were focused on Hamas, The New York Times reported on Monday that the Trump administration was increasingly worried that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could dismantle the ceasefire deal.
