Vice President JD Vance left Israel on Thursday with an optimistic note, saying Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip, could be rebuilt in two to three years.
Vance said Palestinians should be able to move into a “Hamas free zone” in southern Gaza “in the next couple of months.”
He told reporters in Tel Aviv before he boarded Air Force Two that the hope is for people to be able to move back to Rafah. Vance said the reconstruction effort could start “very quickly” in areas not under Hamas control.
“You’re going to have first some people, and then more, and then hopefully in a couple years, a half a million people living in security, living in comfort, and also living in a situation where they’re not threatening their Israeli neighbors,” Vance said.
It is the first time the US administration has spoken in detail about the potential timeline for the reconstruction of Gaza, which has been devastated in two years of war.
He added that both Israel and Hamas are respecting the ceasefire with “exceptions.”
“There are little exceptions to break out here and there that would be expected when these two parties have been at war for two years. But so far, the ceasefire is actually holding. The peace is actually holding.”
Vance said he felt “pretty good” about the maintaining the fragile peace but did admit the potential of “little breakouts of violence.”
“Look, if this peace sticks, you’re going to have these little breakouts of violence. Our message to the Israelis has been: ‘help us build this peace.’ Obviously, the Israelis have their own interests, but we’re going to keep on trying to work with both them and the Gulf-Arab states to make this peace stick,” he said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
