Watch the live broadcast: Vance holds a press briefing in Israel during a visit to promote the ceasefire

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance arrived in Israel on Tuesday to support a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, following a wave of deadly violence and questions about the long-term peace plan.

Watch Vance speak in the player above.

Vance was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials and is expected to remain in the area until Thursday. White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, arrived on Monday, and Vance met them upon landing.

Vance is also expected to meet with the families of hostages whose remains remain in Gaza and some of the living hostages who were released last week. Witkoff and Kushner met with nine of them on Tuesday.

Hamas said it had found the remains of two other hostages and planned to hand them over on Tuesday evening.

The ceasefire entered into force on October 10. While it was tested by Sunday’s fighting and mutual accusations of violations, both Israel and Hamas said they were committed to the agreement. Trump has made it clear that he wants it to succeed.

Pressure for the second phase of the ceasefire

The head of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, Major General Hassan Rashad, traveled to Israel on Tuesday to meet with Netanyahu, Witkoff and others about implementing the ceasefire, according to Netanyahu’s office.

The meetings highlight the urgent need to begin negotiations on the second phase of the US plan, which must address issues such as disarming Hamas and post-war management of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas negotiators reiterated that the movement is committed to ensuring that the war “ends once and for all.”

“Since the day we signed the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement, we have been determined and committed to seeing it through to the end,” Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s chief negotiator, who is in Cairo, told Egypt’s Cairo News Channel late Monday.

Israel identifies another hostage body

Israel confirmed that Palestinian militants released the body of Tal Haimi, who was killed in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war. He was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak. The 42-year-old was part of the emergency response team and has four children, one of whom was born after the attack.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel is waiting for Hamas to hand over the remains of the 15 hostages. Thirteen others were handed over.

Under the agreement, Israel will release 15 Palestinian bodies in exchange for the remains of each dead hostage, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, part of the Hamas-run government. She added that Israel transferred 15 more on Tuesday, bringing the total number to 165 since earlier this month.

Aid to Gaza increases, while prices rise

International organizations said they were working to increase humanitarian aid entering Gaza, while Hamas-led security forces launched a campaign against what they described as price gouging by private sector traders.

The World Food Program said it had sent more than 530 trucks to Gaza in the past 10 days, enough to feed nearly half a million people for two weeks. This number is still much lower than the number that used to enter daily before the war, which ranged between 500 and 600 people.

The World Food Program also said it has restarted 26 distribution points and hopes to expand to the previous 145 points across Gaza as soon as possible.

Residents said prices of basic goods rose on Sunday after activists killed two Israeli soldiers and Israel responded with strikes that killed dozens of Palestinians. Israel also threatened to stop humanitarian aid.

In a market in the central city of Deir al-Balah, a 25-kilogram package of flour sold for more than $70 on Sunday, up from about $12 shortly after the ceasefire. By Tuesday, the price was around $30.

Muhammad Al-Faqawi, a resident of Khan Yunis, accused the merchants of exploiting the dangerous security situation. “They are taking advantage of us,” he added.

Hamas said on Monday that its security forces raided stores across Gaza, closed at least 10 stores and warehouses, and forced merchants to lower prices. Hamas also imposed more order, allowed aid trucks to move safely and stopped the looting of aid.

Nahid Shuhaiber, head of the Private Truck Drivers Union in Gaza, said that there has been no theft of aid since the start of the ceasefire.

But other major challenges remain as Gaza’s financial system is in dire straits. With almost every bank branch and ATM not operational, people pay exorbitant commissions to a network of cash brokers to get money to cover daily expenses.

On Tuesday, dozens of people in Deir al-Balah spent hours queuing in front of the Bank of Palestine hoping to access their money, but were turned away.

“Without opening the bank and without money, it doesn’t matter that the prices (in the market) have fallen,” said a helpless Camellia.

Gaza doctors say that the bodies returned with signs of torture

A senior health official in Gaza said that some Palestinian bodies returned by Israel bore “evidence of torture” and called for a UN investigation.

So far, only 32 bodies have been identified, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Some have evidence of being restrained with ropes, metal shackles, blindfolds, deep cuts, abrasions, burns and shattered limbs, Dr. Mounir Al-Barsh, the ministry’s director-general, said on social media late Monday.

It was not immediately clear whether any of the bodies were prisoners. They are returned without identities or details of how they died. The bodies could include Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli prisons or bodies removed by Israeli forces from Gaza during the war.

The Israel Prison Service denied that prisoners were mistreated, saying it followed legal procedures and provided medical care and “appropriate living conditions.”

Israeli hostages released from Gaza also reported metal shackles and harsh conditions, including frequent beatings and starvation.

In the initial attack on Israel in 2023, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 people hostage.

The war between Israel and Hamas led to the death of more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its statistics. The Ministry maintains detailed records of victims that UN agencies and independent experts generally consider reliable. Israel objected to it without providing its own tally.

Thousands more are missing, according to the Red Cross.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.