SHARM EL SHEIKH: The US and Egyptian presidents are chairing a gathering of world leaders dubbed “the Summit for Peace” to support ending the two-year war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal.
Israel and Hamas have no direct contacts and are not expected to attend Monday’s summit. Israel has rejected any role in Gaza for the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, whose leader is coming.
Leaders from Turkiye, Jordan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the United Nations and European Union also have all said they will attend.
The summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh comes on the same day that Hamas is to release its 20 remaining living Israeli hostages and Israel is to free hundreds of Palestinians from its prisons, crucial steps after a ceasefire began on Friday.
But major questions remain unanswered over what happens next, raising the risk of slide back into war.
So why are the world leaders meeting?
A new page
The two sides came under pressure from the United States, Arab countries and Turkiye to agree on the ceasefire’s first phase.
Israel and Hamas need international and regional technical and financial support to get through many complex issues.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s office said the summit aims to “end the war” in Gaza and “usher in a new page of peace and regional stability” in line with US President Donald Trump’s vision.
In March, Egypt proposed a postwar plan for Gaza that would allow its 2.3 million people to remain. At the time, that was a counterproposal to a Trump plan to depopulate the territory.
The two leaders co-chairing the international summit signals that they are working together on a path forward.
Directly tackling the remaining issues in depth is unlikely at the gathering, expected to last about two hours. El-Sisi and Trump are expected to issue a joint statement after it ends.
Under the first phase, Israeli troops pulled back from some parts of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to return home from areas they were forced to evacuate. Aid groups are preparing to bring in large quantities of aid kept out of the territory for months.
Hostage and prisoner exchange: Logistical challenge
The negotiations will have to tackle the issues of disarming Hamas, creating a post-war government for Gaza and the extent of Israel’s withdrawal from the territory. Trump’s plan also stipulates that regional and international partners will work to develop the core of a new Palestinian security force.
Another major issue is raising funds for rebuilding Gaza. The World Bank, and Egypt’s postwar plan, estimate reconstruction and recovery needs in Gaza at $53 billion. Egypt plans to host a future reconstruction conference.
Who is missing?
Israel and Hamas.
The two primary parties to the conflict — staunch enemies who have little trust in each other and a number of failed negotiations behind them — are not attending.
Negotiations in Doha and in previous rounds were indirect, with Egypt and Qatar as meditators.
Iran, a main backer of Hamas, is not attending either.
Iran finds itself at one of its weakest moments since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials portrayed the ceasefire deal as a victory for Hamas but it underlined Iran’s waning influence in the region and revived concerns over possible renewed conflict with Israel as it still struggles to recover from the 12-day war in June.
A state function
The conference is likely to see world leaders praise Trump’s push for the ceasefire. For his part, El-Sisi is almost certainly relieved that Egypt has warded off plans to depopulate the Gaza Strip.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to attend. Turkiye, which hosted Hamas political leaders for years, played a key role in bringing about the ceasefire agreement. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also expected.
King Abdullah of Jordan is among the expected attendees. His country, alongside Egypt, will train the new Palestinian security force.
Germany, one of Israel’s strongest international backers and top suppliers of military equipment, plans to be represented by Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He has expressed concern over Israel’s conduct of the war and its plan for a military takeover of Gaza. He plans on co-hosting the reconstruction of Gaza conference with Egypt.
Britain’s Prime Minister is Keir Starmer is among the leaders who plans to attend. He has said will pledge 20 million British pounds (27 million dollars) to help provide water and sanitation for Gaza and said Britain will host a three-day conference to coordinate plans for Gaza’s reconstruction and recovery.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, European Union President António Costa and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have also said they will be attending.
The venue
Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, has been host to many peace negotiations in the past decades.
Sharm el-Sheikh was briefly occupied by Israel for a year in 1956. After Israel withdrew, a United Nations peacekeeping force was stationed there until 1967, when Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the peacekeepers to leave, a move that precipitated the Six-Day War that year.
Sharm el-Sheikh and the rest of the Sinai Peninsula were returned to Egypt in 1982, following a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
The town — now known for a luxury beach resort, dive sites and desert tours — also hosted many peace summits and rounds of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians under President Hosni Mubarak, ousted in 2011. Under El-Sisi, the city has also been hosted many international conferences Monday’s is it’s first peace summit under him.
World leaders throw their weight behind the Gaza ceasefire deal
https://arab.news/4wv2s
World leaders throw their weight behind the Gaza ceasefire deal
- The summit in Sharm el Sheikh comes on the same day that Hamas is to release its 20 remaining living Israeli hostages and Israel is to free hundreds of Palestinians from its prisons, crucial steps after a ceasefire began on Friday
- Leaders from Turkiye, Jordan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the United Nations and European Union also have all said they will attend
Israeli army takes journalists into a tunnel in a Gaza city it seized and largely flattened
- Israel and Hamas are on the cusp of finishing the first phase of the truce, which mandated the return of all hostages, living and dead, in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel
- Hamas has said communication with its remaining units in Rafah has been cut off for months and that it was not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas
RAFAH, Gaza Strip: One by one, the soldiers squeezed through a narrow entrance to a tunnel in southern Gaza. Inside a dark hallway, some bowed their heads to avoid hitting the low ceiling, while watching their step as they walked over or around jagged concrete, crushed plastic bottles and tattered mattresses.
On Monday, Israel’s military took journalists into Rafah — the city at Gaza’s southernmost point that troops seized last year and largely flattened — as the 2-month-old Israel-Hamas ceasefire reaches a critical point. Israel has banned international journalists from entering Gaza since the war began more than two years ago, except for rare, brief visits supervised by the military, such as this one.
Soldiers escorted journalists inside a tunnel, which they said was one of Hamas’ most significant and complex underground routes, connecting cities in the embattled territory and used by top Hamas commanders. Israel said Hamas had kept the body of a hostage in the underground passage: Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old soldier who was killed in Gaza more than a decade ago and whose remains had been held there.
Hamas returned Goldin’s body last month as part of a US-brokered ceasefire in the war triggered by the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and hundreds taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says roughly half the dead have been women and children.
Israel and Hamas are on the cusp of finishing the first phase of the truce, which mandated the return of all hostages, living and dead, in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel. The body of just one more hostage remains to be returned.
Mediators warn the second phase will be far more challenging since it includes thornier issues, such as disarming Hamas and Israel’s withdrawal from the strip. Israel currently controls more than half of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington this month to discuss those next steps with US President Donald Trump.
Piles of rubble line Rafah’s roads
Last year, Israel launched a major operation in Rafah, where many Palestinians had sought refuge from offensives elsewhere. Heavy fighting left much of the city in ruins and displaced nearly one million Palestinians. This year, when the military largely had control of the city, it systematically demolished most of the buildings that remained standing, according to satellite photos.
Troops also took control of and shut the vital Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel.
Israel said Rafah was Hamas’ last major stronghold and key to dismantling the group’s military capabilities, a major war aim.
On the drive around Rafah on Monday, towers of mangled concrete, wires and twisted metal lined the roads, with few buildings still standing and none unscathed. Remnants of people’s lives were scattered the ground: a foam mattress, towels and a book explaining the Qur’an.
Last week, Israel said it was ready to reopen the Rafah crossing but only for people to leave the strip. Egypt and many Palestinians fear that once people leave, they won’t be allowed to return. They say Israel is obligated to open the crossing in both directions.
Israel has said that entry into Gaza would not be permitted until Israel receives all hostages remaining in the strip.
Inside the tunnel
The tunnel that journalists were escorted through runs beneath what was once a densely populated residential neighborhood, under a United Nations compound and mosques. Today, Rafah is a ghost town. Underground, journalists picked their way around dangling cables and uneven concrete slabs covered in sand.
The army says the tunnel is more than 7 kilometers (4 miles) long and up to 25 meters (82 feet) deep and was used for storing weapons as well as long-term stays. It said top Hamas commanders were there during the war, including Mohammed Sinwar — who was believed to have run Hamas’ armed wing and was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who helped mastermind the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has said it has killed both of them.
“What we see right here is a perfect example of what Hamas did with all the money and the equipment that was brought into Gaza throughout the years,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “Hamas took it and built an incredible city underground for the purposes of terror and holding bodies of hostages.”
Israel has long accused Hamas of siphoning off money for military purposes. While Hamas says the Palestinians are an occupied people and have a right to resist, the group also has a civilian arm and ran a government that provided services such as health care, a police force and education.
The army hasn’t decided what to do with the tunnel. It could seal it with concrete, explode it or hold it for intelligence purposes among other options.
Since the ceasefire began, three soldiers have been killed in clashes with about 200 Hamas militants that Israeli and Egyptian officials say remain underground in Israeli-held territory.
Hamas has said communication with its remaining units in Rafah has been cut off for months and that it was not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas.
Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of repeated violations of the deal during the first phase. Israel has accused Hamas of dragging out the hostage returns, while Palestinian health officials say over 370 Palestinians have been killed in continued Israeli strikes since the ceasefire took effect.
