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In today's issue:

▪ Israel-Hamas peace plan under strain

▪ AWS outage takes websites offline

▪ Dems rip Trump’s ‘No Kings’ AI video

▪ Boat strike survivors to be repatriated

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President Trump’s peace plan to bring a permanent end to fighting between Israel and Hamas is under intense strain.

The president told reporters Sunday evening that the ceasefire is “still in place” after both sides accused the other of violating it over the weekend.

Trump, speaking on Air Force One while returning to Washington from Palm Beach, said Hamas has been “quite rambunctious” but added he believes its leadership “isn’t involved in that.”

Last week’s exchange of the remaining living hostages being held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel went off smoothly, with both sides meeting the agreed-upon deadlines. Israel also promptly withdrew its soldiers from much of Gaza, and badly needed food, water, medicine and other forms of aid started flowing into the territory.

But tensions have only escalated since then.

Israel has demanded that Hamas immediately turn over the remaining bodies of deceased hostages still in Gaza. Hamas had warned ahead of last week’s deadline that it would take time to track down all the remaining bodies.

Hamas has turned over 12 of the 28 bodies left in the Gaza Strip. Israel has said the Rafah border crossing, which connects Gaza with Egypt and has been closed since May 2024, will remain closed “until further notice,” until all the remains are returned.

Hamas has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to keep the border closed a violation of the ceasefire terms.

But tensions escalated further on Sunday when Israel launched a series of airstrikes on southern Gaza after it said Hamas militants opened fire on its troops, violating the ceasefire. Israel later said two of its soldiers were killed.

The strikes were carried out on what Israel said were dozens of Hamas targets. Palestinian health officials, who don’t distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, said at least 29 Palestinians were killed across Gaza in the strikes.

After the strikes, an Israel security official said the transfer of all aid into Gaza was being halted “until further notice” because of Hamas’s action and all border crossings to Gaza were being closed. But Axios’s Barak Ravid reported that the Trump administration put pressure on Israel following this decision, and Netanyahu walked it back, allowing the crossings to reopen and aid delivery to resume Monday morning local time.

The U.S. has also warned Hamas against possible ceasefire violations as the militant group has seemed to take steps over the past week toward shoring up power in Gaza, despite Trump’s peace plan calling for Hamas to disarm and cede power. Hamas hasn’t fully agreed to those terms yet.

The State Department warned on Saturday that Hamas is planning an “imminent” attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which it said would be a “direct and grave” violation of the ceasefire. It said if the attack goes forward, the U.S. will take measures to “protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire.”

“The United States and the other guarantors remain resolute in our commitment to ensuring the safety of civilians, maintaining calm on the ground, and advancing peace and prosperity for the people of Gaza and the region as a whole,” the statement reads.

Hamas has carried out a wave of public executions as it tries to reassert control of the area and keep other competing militias in check.

Trump said last week at the White House that if Hamas doesn’t disarm itself, “we will disarm them.” He said on Thursday that U.S. forces wouldn’t go into Gaza to stop Hamas from killing civilians, but “somebody” else would go in “under our auspices.”

Implementing the next steps of the ceasefire deal was always likely to be more difficult than the first step, which had been part of the past two ceasefire deals. Negotiators focused the first phase on getting the hostages released and aid into Gaza as both Israel and Hamas didn’t seem ready for a fuller deal yet.

But the exchange of fire and accusations from both sides of violating the ceasefire show the difficulty that lies ahead.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday night local time that it “renewed the adherence to the ceasefire” after the “violation by Hamas.”

“The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” the IDF said in a statement on the social platform X.

▪ The Times of Israel: Hamas isn’t acting like a defeated force.

▪ The Guardian: “Palestinians in Gaza fear ceasefire ‘could collapse at any moment.’”

Smart Take with Blake Burman

Last week saw major developments in wars abroad, as Trump started the week by celebrating the release of the living Israeli hostages held by Hamas. He ended the week with a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the weekend brought a continued focus onto what you could call his renewed war on drugs.

The commander-in-chief posted another video of the U.S. military striking a drug boat off the coast of Venezuela while announcing the “two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution.” That Saturday post was followed up with a Sunday morning missive in which he called Colombia's president "an illegal drug leader."

We are watching a new phase of the president's foreign policy agenda play out in real time in our own hemisphere, and it’s clear this president is willing to show military might close to home.

Burman hosts "The Hill" weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.

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