Vance: ‘These are days of destiny… Tough task ahead of us to disarm Hamas, rebuild Gaza, ensure terror group no longer threatens Israel’

Standing alongside US Vice President JD Vance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauds the “unmatched alliance and partnership with the United States.”

“That is changing the Middle East, and it’s changing the world,” he says. “That’s creating opportunities not only for security, but for the expansion of peace, which we’re working on very, very diligently.”

Netanyahu tells Vance he was impressed “with your clarity, with your incisiveness, with your solidarity for our common cause, and just a genuine friendship that I saw both in conference meetings, but also in our private meetings.”

Speaking after Netanyahu, Vance says, “These are days of destiny, and we’ve very excited to sit down and work together on the Gaza peace plan. We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas, to rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people in Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel.”

He says over the past day, there have been very good conversations with Israel and with Arab countries, “who are stepping up and volunteering to play a very positive role in this.”

“We’re going to do great things here,” he says.

“We’re just creating an unbelievable day after, with a completely new vision,” says Netanyahu.

He adds that they discussed who will run Gaza, who will provide security, and that there were some “very, very good ideas.”

“It’s not going to be easy, but I think it’s possible,” Netanyahu says.

Asked about a potential Turkish presence in Gaza, Netanyahu says, “Israel, will obviously, have to decide together on who does that. So I have very strong opinions about that.”

Vance says that “we are creating a peace plan, an infrastructure here where nothing existed even a week and a day ago.”

“That’s going to require a lot of work,” says Vance. “It requires a lot of ingenuity.”

He says that “we are on an incredible pathway to do something that’s never been done.”

Vance says that if Gaza is done right, it could “create a model for peace agreements all over the world.”