JD Vance tries to build optimism for Gaza ceasefire plan

Kiryat Gat: US Vice President JD Vance declared Tuesday he was confident about a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, but added there was “a lot of work left to do”, as he opened a military coordination centre in Israel.

“What we’ve seen the past week gives me great optimism the ceasefire is going to hold,” he said during a press conference in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, where US and Israel staff are setting up a Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC).

“There are going to be moments where it looks like things aren’t going particularly well… It’s going to require constant effort, constant monitoring and supervision.”

On Sunday, a resumption in deadly fighting between Hamas and Israel following the killing of two Israeli soldiers showed the frailty of the ceasefire that entered into force on October 10.

“Every time that there’s an act of violence, there’s this inclination to say, oh, this is the end of the ceasefire, this is the end of the peace plan. It’s not the end,” Vance said.

He made his address at the headquarters of the CMCC, a coordination centre led by the United States to monitor the Gaza ceasefire and promote US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

The centre will host 200 US soldiers. They will not be deployed in the Gaza Strip, but will limit themselves to providing coordination, while a separate multinational security force is set up.

“You have Israelis and Americans working hand in hand to try to begin the plan to rebuild Gaza, to implement a long-term peace, and to actually ensure that you have security forces on the ground in Gaza, not composed of Americans, who can keep the peace over the long term. So we’ve got a lot of work left to do,” Vance said.

The 20-point ceasefire agreement sponsored by Trump has halted two years of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian Islamist groups.

Various clauses in the deal, however, remain unclear, including the timeline for the disarmament of Hamas and the future governance of the Gaza Strip, which Hamas has ruled since 2007.

Vance did not shed new light on those points.

“If Hamas doesn’t comply with a 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 disarmament, Vance said.

As for the authority that will rule Gaza in the future, Vance said he didn’t have a definite answer, but added that “everybody has a role to play here,” including Turkey, with which Israel has frayed relations.

Contributions by third countries could be financial, in reconstruction, or “in communication with the various parties to ensure that this de-confliction process actually works and is implemented” Vance added.

“We’re creating a governance structure that is very flexible to what happens on the ground in the future… We need to reconstruct Gaza. We need to make sure that both the Palestinians living in Gaza, but also the Israelis, are able to live in some measure of security and civility,” he said.