US President Donald Trump on Monday hailed a ‘tremendous day for the Middle East’ after he and regional leaders signed a declaration to formalise a Gaza ceasefire, following a major exchange of hostages and prisoners between Israel and Hamas.
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 Turkey 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.
‘From October 7 until this week, Israel has been a nation at war, enduring burdens that only a proud and faithful people could withstand,’ Trump told lawmakers during an address to Israel’s parliament, where he received a lengthy standing ovation upon his arrival.
‘For so many families across this land, it has been years since you’ve known a single day of true peace,’ he continued.
‘Not only for Israelis, but also for Palestinians and for many others, the long and painful nightmare is finally over.’
In Tel Aviv, a huge crowd that had gathered to support hostage families erupted in joy, tears and song as news broke of the first releases, though the pain at the loss of those who had not survived was palpable.
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, huge crowds gathered to welcome home the first buses carrying prisoners, with some chanting ‘Allahu akbar’, or God is the greatest, in celebration.
And at a similar gathering in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, residents climbed the sides of slow-moving Red Cross buses carrying the prisoners to welcome home their loved ones with a hug or kiss.
‘Welcome home,’ Israel’s foreign ministry said in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of the hostages.
On Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, Noga shared her pain and joy.
‘I’m torn between emotion and sadness for those who won’t be coming back,’ she said.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is also due to return the bodies of 27 hostages who died or were killed in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in 2014 during a previous Gaza conflict.
Israel has said it does not expect all of the dead hostages to be returned on Monday, though the army said it had received the bodies of two captives that were handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas, and that it was still expecting the remains of two more.
Of the prisoners it freed in return, around 250 were security detainees, including many convicted of killing Israelis, while about 1,700 were taken into custody by the Israeli army in Gaza during the war.
On October 7, 2023, militants seized 251 hostages during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.
All but 47 of those hostages were freed in earlier truces, with the families of those who have remained in captivity leading lives of constant pain and worry for their loved ones.
In Gaza, too, the ceasefire has brought relief, but with much of the territory flattened by war, the road to recovery remains long.
‘The greatest joy is seeing my whole family gathered to welcome me,’ Yusef Afana, a 25-year-old released prisoner from north Gaza, told AFP in Khan Yunis.
‘I spent 10 months in prison – some of the hardest days I’ve ever lived.’
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners released by Israel were met by a cheering crowd so dense that they struggled to get off the bus that delivered them from jail.
‘It’s an indescribable feeling, a new birth,’ newly released Mahdi Ramadan told AFP, flanked by his parents.
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 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 Sisi, he lauded the Egyptian leader as having been ‘very instrumental’ in talks with Hamas.
Sisi, for his part, said Trump was the ‘only one capable of bringing peace to our region’.
Trump also briefly met with Palestinian president Mahmud 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.
