Trump advisers say Israel-Hamas ceasefire not violated as US pushes for Gaza plan

Senior advisers to American President Donald Trump say the Israel-Hamas ceasefire remains unharmed with no reported violations, as the United States moves ahead with its plans for the security and governance of the besieged Gaza Strip.

Two senior US advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, briefed reporters on Wednesday on the progress of President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” for the Gaza Strip, saying they have not yet seen any violations of the ceasefire agreement reached last week between Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

“We’re not at the point yet where anyone feels like the agreement has been violated,” a senior US adviser said.

Hamas and the occupying regime reached a ceasefire deal based on Trump’s plan during indirect talks in Egypt earlier this month. The agreement saw the resistance movement pledge to hand over all the remaining living and dead Israeli captives.

The movement has so far handed back 20 living Israeli captives to Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails. Hamas has also handed over the remains of nine of the 28 known dead captives, saying it would be unable to retrieve any more bodies from the ruins of Gaza without specialized equipment.

Israel, however, claims that one body did not match any identification of the dead captives after forensic testing.

This is while the advisors emphasized that Hamas has met its obligation to release all living captives and that work continues, through mediators and shared intelligence, to retrieve the remaining bodies.

Israel has, however, violated the ceasefire on several occasions since its inception, killing Palestinians. 

The advisors also urged patience as efforts to recover captives’ bodies continue beyond the initial 72-hour deadline.

“We’ve heard a lot of people saying, ‘Well, Hamas violated the deal, because not all the bodies have been returned.’ I think the understanding we had with them was we get all the live hostages out, which they did honor that, and right now, we have a mechanism in place where we’re working closely with mediators and with them (Hamas) to do our best to get as many bodies out as possible,” one senior US adviser stressed.

“And we continue to give them the intelligence that the Israelis have, and … we’ll keep working in good faith until we were able to exhaust that mechanism,” the advisor added.

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The US is also moving to set up what it claims to be an international stabilization force, the two advisors said, a plan Washington claims would help stabilize the Palestinian territory.

The formation of the US-backed “International Stabilization Force” is one of the top requirements of Trump's so-called 20-point Gaza plan, as tensions still remain high between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.

According to the advisors, Washington has spoken to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, and Azerbaijan – among others – about contributing to the force.

A so-called technocratic government is being planned to oversee governance, with Trump chairing a “board of peace” — which includes former British prime minister Tony Blair — that will decide who joins this new Palestinian administrative structure in Gaza.

Washington has already agreed to send up to 200 troops to support the force without being deployed in Gaza itself, with Trump stressing on Wednesday that the US military would not be needed to disarm Hamas.

Since October 7, 2023, the regime has killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wreaked wholesale destruction on almost the entire expanse of the Gaza territory as part of its genocidal war.

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