US President Donald Trump will Israel and Egypt to celebrate the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas and urge Middle East allies to seize the opportunity to build a durable peace in the volatile region. He is expected to speak at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. This visit also coincides with the implementation of the first phase of the Gaza Peace Plan.
After Israel, Trump will head to Egypt, which held negotiations between Israel and Hamas after Trump unveiled the 21-point Gaza Peace Plan, which also included the disarmament of the Hamas group.
The centrepiece of the visit will be a peace ceremony in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh on Monday afternoon. More than 20 leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, would attend the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh.
The White House says momentum is also building because Arab and Muslim states are demonstrating a renewed focus on resolving the broader, decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in some cases, deepening relations with the United States. “I think you are going to have tremendous success and Gaza is going to be rebuilt,” Trump said. “And you have some very wealthy countries, as you know, over there. It would take a small fraction of their wealth to do that. And I think they want to do it.”
Hamas to free all surviving hostages
Hamas is expected to release all 20 living hostages held in Gaza early Monday morning, Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said on Sunday.
Speaking at a press briefing, Bedrosian said an international task force would be established to help locate the remains of hostages who died in captivity and whose bodies Hamas has been unable to find.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held for a third consecutive day on Sunday, as both sides prepared for the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees.
Bedrosian said Israel expects all 20 living hostages to be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross Monday morning, before being transferred to Israeli forces in Gaza. From there, they will be taken to a military base in Israel and later for medical checks in hospitals, where they will reunite with their families.
Under an agreement reached in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, Hamas is to release 20 living and 28 deceased hostages within 72 hours of the Israeli army’s withdrawal to the “yellow line” in Gaza, the first of three withdrawal stages, by Monday at 12:00 p.m. local time.
Hamas has already indicated that it may not be able to locate all the bodies of deceased hostages by that deadline.
Earlier on Sunday, media reports suggested that Hamas had told mediators it was ready to release the living hostages as early as Sunday, ahead of the agreed deadline, if Israel freed at least two of seven high-profile Palestinian prisoners who were previously removed from the release list. There was no official Israeli response.
The deal, part of the U.S.-proposed 20-point plan aimed at ending the war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, also includes the release of about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and increased humanitarian aid access to Gaza, which has been devastated by Israeli bombardments.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that after the hostages are back home, all the remaining Hamas tunnels in Gaza will be destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces and an “international mechanism to be established under U.S. leadership and oversight.”