(A7) US Vice President JD Vance on Monday denied a report in Axios which stated that he decided to cancel a planned trip to Israel this week because the IDF had expanded its military operations in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Rome, Vance was asked whether the report was accurate.
“Well, I think there’s a lot of overstatement there. I haven’t seen the story, to be clear, so I don’t want to speak to the details,” the Vice President replied.
“But the simple reason is, we thought about going to Israel. We also thought about going to a couple of other countries that the president would like me to visit here in the next few months. Logistically, it was just a little bit too hard on basic things like who is going to take care of our kids if we take another couple of days overseas,” he explained, adding, “But on – some more serious things, like how do we provide security, how do we make sure that we get – all the assets that we need in order to do the right official delegation.”
“So, I’m sure we’ll visit Israel sometime in the future, but not today,” added Vance.
On Sunday, journalist Amit Segal reported that Vance was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday.
The White House quickly moved to contradict those reports, with a White House official saying, “Media reports that the vice president will visit Israel are false,” and stressing that Vance will return to Washington on Monday.
