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The U.S. has provided Israel with a written guarantee that Jerusalem can resume its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip if negotiations for the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement fail, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told JNS on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have provided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an official missive confirming that “the State of Israel will be able to return to the war on day 43” if talks fail during the 42-day first phase of the agreement, Smotrich said, speaking at a meeting of his Religious Zionism Party in the Knesset in Jerusalem.

This guarantee was also given to Netanyahu during phone calls with Trump and American government officials, the finance minister said, adding, “These two things together create an American guarantee allowing us to return to war.”

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday he’s not confident that Israel’s ceasefire deal with the Hamas terrorist group will hold through all three phases.

Trump hailed the deal on Sunday as a “first step toward lasting peace in the Middle East,” crediting his incoming Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, with pushing the deal through.

“Our incoming administration has achieved all of this in the Middle East in less than three months without being president. We’ve achieved more without being president than they’ve achieved in four years with being president,” Trump said at a pre-inauguration rally in Washington, D.C.

The Senate on Monday confirmed Marco Rubio as secretary of state, making him the first of President Trump's Cabinet nominees to win the approval of the upper chamber. 

The Senate confirmed Rubio in a 99 to 0 vote as his former colleagues in the Senate touted his qualifications for the job. 

Rubio has represented Florida in the Senate since 2011 and resigned Monday upon Mr.  Trump's inauguration. The 53-year-old China hawk has extensive foreign policy experience and was widely considered to have among the smoothest paths to confirmation in the Senate. 

Rubio, who has taken hardline positions on China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, inherits the position facing a number of global challenges, including Russia's war in Ukraine, persistent violence in the Middle East, China's aggression against Taiwan and its tense relationship with the U.S. Mr. Trump has also suggested using military force or coercion to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. He's floated annexing Canada as the 51st state and has threatened trade wars with U.S. allies.

President Trump said a "tide of change is sweeping the country," striking an optimistic note as he told Americans during his inaugural address Monday that the U.S. is beginning a "new era of national success," while declaring that the country's "decline is

Trump addressed the nation on Monday after taking the oath of office for the second time and being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. 

"In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly. But we are going to bring it back and make it great again, greater than ever before. We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable. America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith, and goodwill," he said.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump warned on Saturday that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement “better hold,” otherwise “all hell will break out.”

“Well, we’re going to see very soon, and it better hold,” Trump said during an interview with NBC News.

The U.S. president-elect, who will be inaugurated on Monday, said he would meet with Netanyahu “fairly shortly.”

The ceasefire was set to come into effect at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, with the first three hostages to be freed sometime after 4 p.m.

Pictures show men in balaclavas and camo fatigues waving their guns as they travelled through various towns in the Gaza Strip.

Slain terror boss Yahya Sinwar's brother Mohammed is understood to be rebuilding the shattered remains of Hamas.

US President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News Saturday that he had encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the hostage deal: “Just keep doing what you have to do. You have to have — this has to end. We want it to end, but to keep doing what has to be done.”

When asked how confident he was that the hostages would be released, Trump said,  “Well, we’re going to see very soon, and it better hold.”

Currently, 33 hostages are set to be released in exchange for 1,904 Palestinian prisoners beginning Sunday, though Hamas has yet to provide a list of names to Israel.

Both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have given Israel full backing to resume the war in Gaza if Israel concludes that talks with Hamas on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement prove “futile,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night.

The hostage-terrorist exchange agreement “is the result of Israel’s cooperation with the outgoing administration of President Biden and the incoming administration of President Trump,” Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language televised address.

“As soon as he was elected, President Trump joined the mission of freeing the hostages. He talked to me on Wednesday night. He praised the agreement and rightly emphasized that the first step of the agreement is a temporary ceasefire. This is what he said—‘a temporary ceasefire,’” the prime minister continued.

President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be moved indoors, he announced Friday, due to dangerously cold temperatures projected in the nation’s capital.

“I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“We will open Capital One Arena on Monday for LIVE viewing of this Historic event, and to host the Presidential Parade. I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing In,” Trump added.

Israel’s Security Cabinet met in Jerusalem on Friday and recommended that the full Cabinet approve the Gaza ceasefire deal with Hamas.

The accord’s first stage is to see the phased release of 33 hostages—alive or dead—over a six-week period starting on Sunday, in return for the release of about 1,000 Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

The ceasefire is expected to go in effect at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, with the first three hostages, women, to be freed around 4 p.m. Their names were slated to be revealed Saturday afternoon by Hamas, 24 hours before their release.

The hostage deal with Hamas is on, Aryeh Deri, the chairman of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Shas Party who previously served as an observer on the War Cabinet, announced on Thursday night.

The Gaza Strip ceasefire should begin on Sunday as planned, despite the need for negotiators to tie up a "loose end" at the last minute, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.

The most interesting detail of the hostage and cease-fire deal that Israeli and Hamas officials agreed to on Wednesday lies neither in its terms, which mainly resemble what’s been on the table for months, nor in the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is effectively acquiescing to Hamas’s continued grip on power in the Gaza Strip after loudly and repeatedly vowing he wouldn’t.

It’s the way the deal was secured: by Steven Witkoff, Donald Trump’s billionaire friend and incoming Mideast envoy, in a blunt Saturday morning meeting with the prime minister. “The envoy explained to his host in no uncertain terms that Trump expected him to agree to a deal,” Amos Harel, the Haaretz military analyst, reported on Tuesday. “Things that Netanyahu had termed life-and-death issues,” he added, “suddenly vanished.”

Granting the Palestinians statehood in the wake of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, would amount to the creation of a “Hamas state,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar charged on Wednesday, speaking hours after his U.S. counterpart endorsed the recognition of “Palestine.”

“In the current situation, establishing a Palestinian state will surely be a Hamas state,” Israel’s top diplomat told an Italian reporter who asked about U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks during a joint press briefing with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Rome.

Sa’ar added that “there is a reason why the Palestinian Authority didn’t make elections since 2005.”

(photo: Flash90)

Preparations have started for the return of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for 467 days, the Israel Defense Forces announced following President-elect Donald Trump’s confirmation that a deal had been reached in Qatar.

U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed on Wednesday that Israel and Hamas have reached a breakthrough deal that would see the phased release of hostages whom Hamas holds in exchange for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

“This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much-needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity,” Biden stated.

“It is the result not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran—but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” the president added. “My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done.”

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal, according to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

“This epic ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November, as it signaled to the entire world that my administration would seek peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans and our allies,” Trump stated on Wednesday.

Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), visited Israel this week as the guest of Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.

According to the IDF, the two military leaders held a strategic meeting to assess regional threats in the Middle East and discuss operational cooperation.

As Donald Trump prepares to reclaim the White House in seven days, an extensive portfolio of international and domestic challenges awaits—with Israel’s security concerns commanding significant attention. Unlike his first term, Trump enters office on Jan. 20 following methodical preparation and with a clear grasp of both priorities and implementation strategies.

The Iranian nuclear threat stands as the foremost security concern. Having withdrawn from the nuclear agreement in 2018 during his previous term, Trump demonstrates acute awareness of the immediate danger Tehran represents. Two assassination attempts by the ayatollahs’ regime have only reinforced his determination for swift resolution. The incoming administration’s approach encompasses multiple strategies: stringent American sanctions, enhanced Israeli-American military collaboration and the potential formation of a broader international coalition.

(photo: AFP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will unveil a plan for the post-war management of Gaza in a speech on Tuesday that has been the subject of internal divisions within the Biden administration, according to a US official.

Blinken hopes the plan will serve as a blueprint for Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction after the war. Frameworks for these three issues will be a key part of negotiations regarding the second phase of a still-to-be-finalized hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.

But some in the State Department and White House have expressed concerns that giving the address this week would be ill-timed and potentially damaging to nearly-finished efforts to finalize an agreement on the first stage of a hostage deal, the US official told The Times of Israel on Monday, confirming reporting in the Axios news site.

In the hours before the expected ceasefire announcement in Doha, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered his final foreign policy speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., saying, "We await final word from Hamas on its acceptance, and until we get that word, we'll remain on the brink."

Blinken said that word could "come any time, could come in the hours ahead, it could come in the days ahead."

United States President-elect Donald Trump provided insight into the hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas Monday, revealing to Newsmax: "I understand there's been a handshake and they're getting it finished and maybe by the end of the week, but it has to take place."

(photo: Flash90)

Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Knesset coalition have at times opposed the deal that the Jewish state is negotiating with the Hamas terror group. But Ohad Tal, who chairs the Religious Zionism Party’s Knesset faction, made the unusual decision to reject the negotiations publicly and not only to do so while traveling abroad, but in remarks at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Jerusalem would free some 1,300 Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, including hundreds serving life sentences. The 33 hostages would include female soldiers, women and men over the age of 50, as well as ill and wounded captives. It is unknown how many are still alive.