World leaders descend on Egypt to sign Trump's Gaza ceasefire deal
Leaders and officials from more than two dozen countries descended on the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to sign a ceasefire deal marking the "end" of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi basked in their success at bringing Israel and Hamas to a deal, as leaders lined up to take photos with US President Donald Trump in front of a sign that read "Peace 2025."
Among those gathered for the summit were Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who less than a month ago was blocked by the White House from attending the UN General Assembly in New York, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto amongst others.
In a bizarre twist, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was also invited along with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
However, noticeably absent were representatives from Hamas and Israel. The leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were also missing, with the Gulf states instead choosing to send lower-level officials.
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Earlier in the day, Trump arrived to a warm welcome in Sharm el-Sheikh following a short trip to Israel.
There, he hailed Netanyahu as "one of the greatest" wartime leaders and declared a "new dawn in the Middle East."
In Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump rode with Sisi to the conference centre and hosted a short press conference where he hailed the ceasefire deal as a "once in a lifetime deal."
"Everybody's happy," Trump told reporters, adding that he had done "big deals before" but "this has taken off like a rocket ship".
When asked by a reporter what stage of the peace agreement Gaza had entered into, Trump said that "phase two has started as far as we're concerned."
Later, at the summit, the US president unveiled the memorandum, dubbed "The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity," which laid out broad commitments that the leaders of the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey had signed onto.
"We understand that lasting peace will be one in which both Palestinians and Israelis can prosper with their fundamental human rights protected, their security guaranteed, and their dignity upheld," the memo stated.
"We hereby commit to the resolution of future disputes through diplomatic engagement and negotiation rather than through force or protracted conflict. We acknowledge that the Middle East cannot endure a persistent cycle of prolonged warfare, stalled negotiations, or the fragmentary, incomplete, or selective application of successfully negotiated terms," it added.
Monday's summit came days after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire agreement to "end the war" on Gaza and exchange prisoners.
Under the deal, Hamas had until midday (9am GMT) to release all Israeli captives - including 20 who are believed to be alive, and the remains of up to 28 deceased hostages.
'I've always liked Tony [Blair], but I want to find out that he's an acceptable choice to everybody'
- US President Donald Trump
The Palestinian group released all living captives but by 12:00 GMT said it could only return the remains of four Israelis.
In exchange, Israel released around 250 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as around 1,700 Palestinians who were abducted from Gaza during the past two years of war and held without charge.
Celebrations erupted throughout Israel following the release of the captives, but there were muted reunions in Gaza after Israeli forces warned that anyone celebrating the release of detainees could face arrest.
Questions remain unanswered about the details for the later phases, such as the governance of Gaza, the extent of Israeli troop withdrawal, and the disarming of Hamas - which could be hard to reach an agreement on.
Trump unveiled his controversial 20-point plan last week, which will see the creation of a Board of Peace led by the US president.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is widely discredited in the region due to his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and as a failed Middle East envoy for the Quartet from 2007 to 2015, will also serve on the committee.
However, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he travelled to Israel on Monday, Trump questioned whether Blair could be popular enough to serve on the board.
"I've always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he's an acceptable choice to everybody," Trump said.
Blair meets PA officials in Jordan
On Sunday, Hussein al-Sheikh, the deputy president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), met Blair in the Jordanian capital Amman, where he expressed readiness to work with the former UK prime minister.
"Today, I met Mr Tony Blair to discuss the day after the war and making President Trump's efforts, which aim at stopping the war and establishing lasting peace in the region, a success," he said.
"We stressed the importance of stopping the undermining of the PA, and especially the return of withheld Palestinian revenues, and preventing the undermining of the two-state solution in preparation for a comprehensive and lasting peace in accordance with international legitimacy," he added.
His comments came less than a week after the PA's justice minister, Sharhabeel al-Zaeem, slammed Blair's involvement, saying: "Is this the independent Palestinian state we are aiming for?
"All these struggles for all these years in order to have Mr Blair, who failed in London, who failed in Britain, who failed in Iraq, come and - with all due respect at a personal level to Mr Blair - be our guardian as if we were minors?" he said.
Hamas released a statement early on Monday morning, saying Netanyahu was ultimately "forced to submit to the resistance's conditions".
"The resistance made every effort to preserve the lives of the occupation's prisoners, despite the attempts of the war criminal Netanyahu and his terrorist army to target and eliminate them," it said.
During more than two years of war, Israeli forces killed or wounded more than 245,000 Palestinians and decimated most of Gaza's infrastructure - including homes, schools, universities, mosques, churches, public spaces and health centres.
Recent reports, based on Israeli military intelligence data, indicated that more than 80 percent of those killed through to May of this year were civilians.
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