On the second day of a US diplomatic push aimed at shoring up the fragile Gaza ceasefire, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, dismissed as “hogwash” suggestions that his country was a client state of Washington.
Despite the US providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons, asked on Wednesday if Israel was beholden to Washington, Netanyahu said: ‘‘I want to put it very clearly. One week they say that Israel controls the United States. A week later they say the United States controls Israel. This is hogwash.”
At the end of a meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, in Jerusalem, part of a US diplomatic blitz in support of the US truce plan, Netanyahu added: ‘‘We have a partnership, an alliance of partners, who share common values and common goals. We can have discussions, we can have disagreements here and there, but on the whole, I have to say that in the past year we’ve had agreement – agreement not only on goals but how to reach them.”
Vance replied: “We don’t want a vassal state, and that’s not what Israel is. We don’t want a client state, and that’s not what Israel is. We want a partnership. We want an ally here.”
Vance’s visit follows that of the US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Their objective, according to analysts, was to calm tensions after the ceasefire had been shaken by repeated violations since it was put in place on 10 October, with Palestinian militants killing two Israeli soldiers and Israel bombing Gaza on Sunday.
The US vice-president spoke of the tough task ahead in disarming Hamas and building a peaceful future for Gaza, as Washington sought to reassure Israel over the next steps of the truce, including recovering the remaining bodies of Israeli hostages in Gaza and the rebuilding of the devastated territory.
“We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel,” Vance said.
He cited an “international security force” as one of the bodies that would have to be set up in Gaza. Under Trump’s 20-point plan, this military mission would keep the peace in the territory as Israel withdrew.
On Tuesday, Vance said there would be a “constructive role” for Turkey to play as the truce moved towards the next stage.
“A lot of our Israeli friends [will be] working together with a lot of Americans to actually mediate this entire ceasefire process, to get some of the critical infrastructure off the ground,” Vance said.
However, reports that Turkey – an outspoken critic and regional rival of Israel – could provide troops have rattled Israeli opinion.
Netanyahu hinted on Wednesday at his opposition to Turkish security forces in the strip. Responding to a question about the idea of Turkey having a role in Gaza, Netanyahu said: “We will decide together about that. So I have very strong opinions about that. Want to guess what they are?”
Turkey, which helped convince Hamas to accept Trump’s plan, has said it would take part in the international taskforce to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire, and that its armed forces could serve in a military or civilian capacity as needed.
As Vance and Netanyahu met, the top UN court was set to deliver its opinion on Israel’s legal obligations to provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is responding to a request by the UN general assembly last year for an advisory opinion on Israel’s legal obligations after the country’s de-facto ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa).
While the ICJ’s opinion is non-binding, it carries significant legal weight that could have an impact on the UN and its work across the globe.
Also on Wednesday, the Knesset preliminarily approved a bill to apply sovereignty in the West Bank. The bill would have to go through further votes to become law.
Netanyahu had previously asked Israeli representatives to hold off presenting the bill during Vance’s visit, as the US has said in the past that annexation of the West Bank was a red line.
Shouting broke out in the Knesset during the vote, with one representative, Avi Maoz of the far-right Noam party, saying “the time has come to apply sovereignty”, and that Israelis had an obligation to “settle in the land of Israel.”
Despite the warm words exchanged between Israel and the US, and cautious optimism over Gaza’s future, the ceasefire remains fragile, with both sides trading blame over repeated violations.
The Palestinian news agency said Israel had violated the ceasefire 80 times and killed at least 80 Palestinians in the past 11 days. Israel, in turn, has accused Hamas of delaying the return of hostages’ bodies, which it says is a violation of the ceasefire deal.
Hamas has sent back 15 bodies – including two received from the Red Cross on Tuesday night, named as Aryeh Zalmanovich and Tamir Adar – but needs to hand over 13 more.
The militant group has said locating the remains will take time as many are buried under rubble.
Israel returned 30 more bodies of Palestinians to Gaza on Wednesday. Many of the bodies sent back to Gaza have shown marks of torture, health officials in the strip said, with corpses arriving bound and blindfolded.
Dozens of people gathered in front of Nasser hospital in southern Gaza for a mass funeral for 54 unidentified bodies clad in white shrouds. The bodies were among the 165 Israel returned last week, most of whom have still not been identified by families. Some of the bodies, bearing freezer burns from their extended time in the morgue, were difficult to identify because the corpses were marred.
Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli forces as they cross over the “yellow line” that marks Israeli troop withdrawals. Civil defence officials have said Palestinians have no idea where the line is on the ground. The Israeli military said it had begun to mark the yellow line on Tuesday with large yellow concrete blocks placed every 200 metres.
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