Middle East: Trump says Gaza ceasefire intact amid fighting

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with top US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner after weekend violence threatened to derail a fragile US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu met earlier today with special envoy Steve Witkoff and [US] President [Donald] Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner on the developments and updates in the region," Netanyahu's spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists.

She added that US Vice President JD Vance and his wife were expected to visit Israel "for a few days and will be meeting with the prime minister."

US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire was still in effect after Israel launched deadly airstrikes and halted all aid to Gaza on Sunday, claiming its troops came under fire from Hamas.

"Yeah, it is," Trump told reporters when asked if the truce was holding.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens of Palestinians died as both sides blamed the other for violating the ceasefire.

Trump said Hamas leadership may not be involved in the violations. 

"We think maybe the leadership isn't involved in that," he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"Either way ... it's going to be handled toughly but properly."

Trump was unsure if the Israeli strikes were justified. He said, "I'd have to get back to you on that."

Vice President JD Vance said Sunday he may visit Israel soon, adding the administration wants to "check on how things are going." On the ceasefire, he noted there will be "fits and starts."

Humanitarian aid to Gaza was set to resume Monday, Israeli security sources told news outlets, without providing further details. Lack of access to proper nutrition and medicine has exacerbated the death toll in Gaza, which according to the Gaza Health Ministry is at least 70,000, most of them civilians.

Israel halted aid to the Palestinian territory on Sunday after accusing Hamas of violating the truce by firing on its soldiers.

It was unclear whether the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would reopen.

Israel said last week that the crossing's reopening would depend on Hamas fulfilling its obligations under the ceasefire.

Israel says Hamas is delaying the return of hostage bodies. Hamas has released all 20 living captives and 12 of the 28 deceased. US President Trump has said that he believes Hamas is acting in good faith to try and locate the bodies of the deceased hostages.

The militant group said it needs time and technical assistance to recover the remaining bodies from beneath Gaza’s rubble.

Maccabi Tel Aviv said the club will not use its away ticket allocation for the Europa League away game at Aston Villa next month.

In a statement, the Israeli club cited concerns over their supporters' safety as the reason behind the decision.

"We acknowledge the efforts of the UK government and police to ensure both sets of fans can attend the match safely," the club said, adding that the wellbeing of the Israeli champions' supporters is "paramount."

The announcement comes after West Midlands Police decided to ban all away supporters from attending the game, sparking a public debate in the UK.

The European Union has not ruled out imposing sanctions on Israel as a way to pressure it into guaranteeing that the Gaza ceasefire is enforced, the bloc's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday after meeting with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg. 

"The ceasefire has changed the context — that is very clear for everybody," Kallas said.

"However, unless we see real and sustained change on the ground, including more aid reaching Gaza, the threat of sanctions remains on the table."

DW's Brussels correspondent Rosie Birchard said there's no doubt that the situation for Gazans has changed since September, when the EU's executive unveiled plans to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers and partially suspend the EU-Israel trade deal over what the bloc called rights violations in Gaza. 

Those proposals were always unlikely to get sufficient backing from EU states to kick in. Germany was the key hold-out, though Hungary had also vowed to veto where it could.

But now that a fragile ceasefire is in place, EU foreign ministers have been assessing what to do next. 

We asked the bloc's top diplomat whether she intended to push sanctions forward — or scrap them.

Kaja Kallas told reporters there were "very divergent views" at Monday's meeting.

"So what is something that we landed on? [It] is that we don't move with the measures now, but we don't take them off the table either, because the situation is fragile," Kallas said.

"We need to see, really, the improvement of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. We need to see also Palestinian revenues that are given to Palestine, or released by the Israeli authorities," she added.

"We need to see journalists and humanitarian aid workers getting in. We need to see also the international NGOs registration to be unrestricted."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the Red Cross is on its way to a meeting point in southern Gaza, where a coffin containing the body of a deceased hostage is being handed over into its custody.

"The IDF requests that the public act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be provided to the families," the military said in a tweet.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed US President Donald Trump's claim that American and Israeli airstrikes in June destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying Trump is "dreaming."

"The US president proudly says they bombed and destroyed Iran's nuclear industry. Very well, keep dreaming!" Khamenei was reported as saying by Iranian state media. "What does it have to do with America whether Iran has nuclear facilities or not? These interventions are inappropriate, wrong and coercive."

Khamenei also rejected Trump's renewed call for negotiations, saying: "Trump says he is a dealmaker, but if a deal is accompanied by coercion and its outcome is predetermined, it is not a deal but rather an imposition and bullying."

Tehran and Washington had held five rounds of indirect nuclear talks earlier this year through Oman, which broke off after Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran on June 13, triggering a 12-day war. The US later joined those strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.

While Trump told Israel's parliament last week that the facilities had been "annihilated," the extent of the damage remains unclear.

The armed wing of Hamas has said it will imminently return the body of an Israeli hostage recovered a day earlier as part of its ceasefire agreement with Israel.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said it "will hand over the body of an Israeli prisoner, which was exhumed yesterday in the Gaza Strip, at 8 pm Gaza time [1700 UTC]" on Monday.

If completed, the transfer will mark the 13th deceased hostage returned by Hamas since the ceasefire began on October 10.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser son-in-law Jared Kushner arrived in Israel to try to push forward the truce in Gaza, a US embassy spokesperson said.

Ahead of his visit, Kushner spoke to CBS news. 

"The biggest message that we've tried to convey to the Israeli leadership now is that now that the war is over, if you want to integrate Israel with the broader Middle East, you have to find a way to help the Palestinian people thrive and do better," Kushner said in an interview that aired on Sunday.

He added they were looking for "joint security and economic opportunity" to guarantee that Israelis and Palestinians "can live peacefully side by side in a durable way."

US Vice President JD Vance is to visit Israel this week.

German public broadcaster ZDF said an employee of a production company it was working with was killed in a rocket attack on Sunday.

The 37-year-old engineer, as well as the eight-year-old son of another employee, were killed when the office of Palestine Media Production in southern Gaza was struck.

A third staff member was injured, and several vehicles, including a transmission van, were destroyed.

"Our thoughts are with the victims and their families, to whom we express our deepest condolences. It is unacceptable that media professionals are attacked while carrying out their work," ZDF Editor-in-Chief Bettina Schausten said.

The Israeli military says it is reviewing the incident.

A police ban on the Israeli Premier League's Tel Aviv football derby triggered anger from teams and political critics.

Sunday's football match between Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv was canceled due to "public disorder and violent riots," Israel Police said.

Hapoel, however, blamed the chaos on law enforcement.

"From the preliminary discussions before the game, it seemed that the police were preparing for a war rather than a sports event," the club said in a statement published on social media.

"Everyone saw the harsh videos, children trampled by horses, police officers beating fans indiscriminately," it added.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid also seized on the incident to criticize Israel's far-right interior minister.

"To the endless list of failures of the incompetent minister Itamar Ben Gvir, tonight was added the inability to facilitate a soccer game in the State of Israel," Lapid posted on social media.

Maccabi Tel Aviv was less outspoken. The club's supporters were already barred from a Europa League match against Aston Villa next month in the United Kingdom after British police expressed concerns about potential protests outside the stadium.

The UK government is trying to reverse the ban, which has been criticized by Israeli ministers, the UEFA football governing body and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

There's international pressure on both Israel and Hamas to stick to the ceasefire in Gaza, despite deadly clashes on Sunday.

The Israeli military said it hit Hamas targets across the territory after militants fired an anti-tank missile at its troops, killing two soldiers.

Local residents and health officials said at least 26 Palestinians were killed in the strikes. 

Still, both sides say they remain committed to the truce, which aims to end more than two years of war.

US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire was holding and added: "We want to make sure it’s going to be very peaceful."