President Donald Trump insisted Sunday night that the ceasefire in Gaza was still in place after Israel launched strikes in the enclave and traded accusations with Hamas that each side had violated the fragile truce he helped broker.
"We wanna make sure that it's going to be very peaceful with Hamas," Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One late Sunday after Israel carried out a wave of strikes in response to what it said were a series of Hamas attacks on Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Sunday that it had begun "renewed enforcement of the ceasefire" after the first major test of the deal.
Trump said Washington believed that Hamas leadership may not have been involved in the alleged violation of the truce after Israel accused the militant group of killing two soldiers beyond the "yellow line," referring to the boundary within Gaza that Israeli troops have withdrawn to under the first phase of the truce.
Asked whether the Israeli strikes that followed the incident were justified, Trump said, "I'd have to get back to you on that," adding that the matter was "under review." He said the situation was “going to be handled toughly, but properly.”
As fears grew in the region that the 10-day-old ceasefire agreement could collapse, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, landed in Israel, where they met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a spokesperson for his government.
The spokesperson added that Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, were also expected to make a trip to Israel.
Hamas' failure to return all of the bodies of deceased hostages held in Gaza had already put a strain on talks to advance to a second stage of the deal.
Hamas returned the body of one more hostage via the Red Cross on Monday, according to the IDF.
"The coffin of the deceased hostage, escorted by IDF troops, crossed the border into the State of Israel a short while ago and is on its way to the National Institute for Forensic Medicine, where identification procedures will be carried out," the IDF said on X.
If the body returned by Hamas on Monday is confirmed to be one of the hostages, then the bodies of 15 deceased hostages still remain in Gaza.
The difficulty of locating remains of deceased hostages amid the rubble of Gaza had been raised by both Hamas and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has helped facilitate the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
Israeli barriers to more aid entering Gaza, another key tenet of the agreement, have also been a point of contention. An Israeli security official said Monday that aid would enter the famine-stricken territory through the Kerem Shalom crossing, while the Rafah crossing remained closed.
But after days of mounting tensions, Sunday's strikes posed a sudden and significant threat to the deal.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza told NBC News on Sunday that at least 23 people had been killed in Israeli attacks that day.
Hamas denied any involvement in the incident in Rafah and emphasized its commitment to the truce, while a senior official accused Israel of working to “fabricate flimsy pretexts” for its own assault.
Hamas' government media office accused Israel of committing "80 violations" of the ceasefire since it began, which it said had killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds in just over a week.
In a post on X on Monday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the IDF to convey a “clear message” to Hamas leaders in Gaza through an “American oversight mechanism” warning that any militant found beyond the yellow line must evacuate the area immediately.
He said anyone who remained would be a “target for attack without any further warning” and that Hamas leaders would be considered responsible for any incident.
Israel has repeatedly been accused of opening fire on Palestinians, with the IDF confirming at least one incident in which it said it had opened fire on people who came near the "yellow line."
It was not clear exactly how aware Palestinians will have been of where that line sits. On Monday, a spokesperson for Katz shared video showing yellow blocks being placed along the boundary, saying efforts were underway to clearly mark the withdrawal line.
For families who have been hoping to finally bury the remains of their loved ones, the delays and confusion have left them devastated.
“Hamas hasn’t been living up to their part of the deal,” Orna Neutra, the mother of Omer Neutra, a 21-year-old IDF soldier from New York whose body has been held by Hamas in Gaza, told NBC News in an interview Monday.
“Our son, he’s still there,” she said, sitting alongside her husband, Ronen Neutra. She added that she hoped Witkoff and Kushner would be working during their visit to the Middle East to ensure the remains of hostages still held in Gaza are located and released.
Meanwhile, families in Gaza have been trying to identify their loved ones among the bodies returned by Israel under the deal, with some traveling to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to see if they could find their relatives.
“We wanted to go there to see if our son was among them as he has been missing for two years,” Mohammad Al-Masri said Saturday of his 18-year-old son, Haitham, who he said he feared had been detained by Israeli forces nearly two years ago.
“We don’t know his fate — whether he is alive or dead,” his wife, Samar Al-Masri, added.
