JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump hailed a “tremendous day for the Middle East” as he and regional leaders signed a declaration Monday meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza, hours after Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages and prisoners.
Trump made a lightning visit to Israel, where he lauded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to parliament, before flying to Egypt for a Gaza summit where he and the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye signed the declaration as guarantors to the Gaza deal.
“This is a tremendous day for the world, it’s a tremendous day for the Middle East,” Trump said as more than two dozen world leaders sat down to talk in the resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
“The document is going to spell out rules and regulations and lots of other things,” Trump said before signing, repeating twice that “it’s going to hold up.”
As part of Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, Hamas on Monday freed the last 20 surviving hostages it held after two years of captivity in Gaza.
In exchange, Israel released 1,968 mostly Palestinian prisoners held in its jails, its prison service said.
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Trump’s visit to the Middle East aims to celebrate his role in brokering last week’s ceasefire and hostage release deal — but much remains to be negotiated.
Among the potential sticking points are Hamas’s refusal to disarm and Israel’s failure to pledge full withdrawal from the devastated territory.
The US leader, however, repeatedly signalled he was confident the ceasefire will hold, saying at a joint appearance with El-Sisi in Sharm El-Sheikh that talks on the next steps of the plan were underway.
“It’s started, as far as we’re concerned, phase 2 has started,” he said.
“The phases are all a little bit mixed in with each other,” he added.
Trump announced in late September a 20-point plan for Gaza, which helped bring about the ceasefire.
At his appearance with El-Sisi, he lauded the Egyptian leader as having been “very instrumental” in talks with Hamas.
El-Sisi, for his part, said Trump was the “only one capable of bringing peace to our region.”
Trump also briefly met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas at the summit, which representatives of Israel and Hamas did not attend.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem on Monday urged Trump and the mediators of the Gaza deal to “continue monitoring Israel’s conduct and to ensure it does not resume its aggression against our people.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,869 people, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers credible.
The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.
