The U.S.-led peace plan for the Gaza Strip is beginning to transition from the first phase to the second, following the release of all living Israeli hostages, senior U.S. advisers told reporters on Wednesday.
“We got through phase one very, very well, and now we’re all working hard to create the conditions for a successful implementation of phase two,” the adviser said. “Phase two calls for a nonpolitical, technocratic, Palestinian governance there, and that process is starting to find the right people, recruit the right people, create the right conditions for it.”
“The short-term focus continues to be on deconfliction to make sure that people don’t do unnecessary provocations. We are seeing different actions on all sides that obviously President Trump and his team are working very hard to minimize,” they said.
The White House is still of the position that Hamas is participating in good faith despite reports of violence against rival factions taking place since the ceasefire was implemented.
Video has emerged of what appears to be Hamas gunmen lining up and executing captives in a public square of the war-torn Gaza City. Eight victims, with their arms tied behind their backs, were killed in front of a crowd cheering “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
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Palestinians have also accused Israel of continuing attacks inside Gaza, with three allegedly killed in strikes on Wednesday.
Following the release of the living hostages, Hamas has failed to produce the remains of all deceased Israelis held by Hamas following the Oct. 7 attacks.
“No one is getting left behind,” another senior U.S. adviser said, explaining that recovery efforts will not cease until all remains are accounted for.
The bodies of two more hostages were returned to Israel on Wednesday after the country said that a body returned the day prior was not that of a hostage.
The terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas called for all Israeli hostages and bodies of hostages to be released. All living hostages have been released, but there have been concerns about whether Hamas can retrieve the bodies of deceased captives.
The adviser added that the destruction in Gaza has made recovery efforts difficult and slow.
“On top of all that debris is a lot of unexploded ordnance, and presumably, under that unexploded ordnance and that debris, there are many bodies,” the adviser explained. “Now, there’s a lot of different intelligence on where someone might have been killed, where they might have been injured, and we’ve got a lot of information with regard to that. And we’ve got a huge, huge effort in understanding all of those things.”
They added, “Now that we have greater control physically of the area, it’s going to allow us to do a lot more with the resources we have there — but we need more resources, and we’re calling on multiple countries and they’re giving us tremendous commitments just recently.”
“Each day we’re getting deceased out,” the top adviser said. “We’re not gonna leave until everyone comes home.”
Turkey has offered to provide an 81-man team of experts in body recovery operations to aid U.S.-led efforts in the region.
Regarding the long-term geopolitical status of the Palestinian territories, if the plan continues successfully, the U.S. is noncommittal. Instead, the White House is focusing on function over formality.
“The goal with this is less to get stuck in these old word games of ‘statehood,’ ‘sovereignty,’ ‘governance.’ It’s like — let’s just make this place functional,” the top adviser told reporters.
“President Trump is about pragmatism and about results, and we’re trying to stay away from the old diplomatic parlor games that quite frankly have not achieved a better life for the Palestinian people and peace in the region,” they said.
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President Donald Trump brokered the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last week and later declared that the conflict in the region was over.
“This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death, and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God. It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a magnificent region,” he said in a speech on Monday to the Israeli parliament.