President Donald Trump is expected to greet the freed Israeli hostages on Monday morning during his trip to the Middle East, Vice President JD Vance revealed on Sunday, following the breakthrough peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
Vance said it’s unclear exactly at this point in time when the transfer of the remaining hostages in Gaza will take place, but said it should be happening early Monday.
“It’s a monumental thing,” the vice president said on NBC News’s Meet the Press. “It’s great, of course, for their families.”
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Of the 48 hostages to be released this week, 20 are believed to be alive.
Before announcing the first phase of the peace deal late Wednesday, Trump said he would be visiting the Middle East to show support for his administration’s final negotiations with Hamas. But in the wake of the new ceasefire, Trump said he would be meeting the hostages and their families.
Trump departed for the Middle East on Sunday. He will first visit Israel and then Egypt.
Vance touted the president’s peace efforts, explaining how the administration diverged from the “traditional, failed diplomatic roots” to help mediate an agreement.
“It’s kind of crazy to me that for our entire history, we’ve never had a president who’s been willing to sit down both with the Gulf Arab states and the Israelis to try to tap some unconventional people to just get a deal done,” he told NBC News host Kristen Welker. “I think Americans should be proud of the entire administration. They should be proud of their country because we’ve worked so hard to make peace in the Middle East happen, and we are right on the cusp of bringing these hostages home.”
Also during the interview, Vance said the United States is “not planning to put boots on the ground” in Gaza or Israel.
“We’re going to have Central Command troops that are already there that are going to monitor this peace proposal,” he continued. “From Indonesia to the Gulf Arab states, we’ve had a number of Muslim-majority countries offer to step up and have them put troops on the ground to secure Gaza. It’s not going to be necessary for American troops to be in Gaza.”
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Vance’s statement confirmed previous reporting that the U.S. will oversee about 200 foreign troops who will be deployed in Gaza if the Israel-Hamas ceasefire holds.
As part of the deal to release the remaining hostages, both dead and alive, the Israeli military agreed to withdraw from parts of Gaza to a certain line in the Palestinian enclave. U.S. Central Command already confirmed that Israel has fulfilled its part of the agreement, the vice president noted.
, 2025-10-12 15:03:00, 
, Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, David Zimmermann
