US President Donald Trump on Monday praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s “very important role” in securing a Gaza peace deal, while Al-Sisi in turn told the US leader he was the “only one capable of bringing about peace” in the Middle East.
The exchange took place during a joint appearance on Monday before the start of an international peace summit in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh to finalise an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
“I was sure you were the only one, Mr. President, who can end this war… the only one capable of bringing peace to our region,” Al-Sisi said of Trump as more than two dozen world leaders waited for the summit to begin. “We want to fixate the ceasefire and make sure it maintains.”
Trump reciprocated the praise, calling Al-Sisi a “friend of mine” and a powerful leader. “He played a very important role. I appreciate it very much,” Trump said, adding that the US was “with him all the way.”
Al-Sisi stressed the need to “ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the handover of the bodies of Israeli captives to their families,” and called for US support for the Cairo Conference on Gaza reconstruction scheduled for November.
During the bilateral meeting, Trump said that the second phase of peace negotiations between Hamas and Israel was already underway.
“Phase two has started,” Trump said. “And you know, the faces are all a little bit mixed in with each other. Gonna start cleaning up…if you look at Gaza, it needs a lot of clean up.” He also said that now that living hostages had been freed, the search for the bodies of victims would continue.
Trump’s 20-point peace proposal calls for the establishment of an international “Board of Peace” to supervise a new Gaza governing body, which Trump would lead. Asked by a reporter if Al-Sisi might have a seat on the board, Trump said, “I’d like to have him on the board.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff added that he thinks there is a “long list of applicants” to be on the board.
The US president also said that Egypt has “very little crime” because “they don’t play games.”
PRISONER EXCHANGE BEGINS
As the summit convened, the first stage of the ceasefire deal was being implemented on the ground, with Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails to cheering crowds in Gaza. The exchange took place hours after all living Israeli captives were returned from the besieged enclave.
Hamas, for its part, welcomed the prisoner-exchange deal reached under the ceasefire agreement, describing it on Telegram as “a fruit of the heroism and steadfastness of our great people,” and declaring that “Israel failed to free its captives by force and ultimately had to bow to the resistance’s conditions.” The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said the outcome “honors the resistance’s pledge to its people and prisoners,” emphasizing that the return of Israeli captives “can only be achieved through a swap deal and an end to the war of extermination.”
In total, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Of the first 250 prisoners serving life sentences, 154 were deported to Egypt, while 88 were taken to the West Bank and Jerusalem, and eight returned to Gaza, according to a joint statement from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Authority and the Prisoners’ Club NGO.
Meanwhile, images showed dozens of Hamas fighters at a hospital in southern Gaza during the release of the Israeli captives on Monday morning. Hamas-associated Telegram channels said “collaborators and traitors” had been targeted, a reference to an Israel-backed militia in the territory. The group’s gunmen were also involved in deadly clashes with a powerful local family in Gaza City over the weekend.
Asked about reports that Hamas was moving against rivals to regain control, President Trump suggested the group was acting within the parameters of the deal.
“They do want to stop the problems and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time … You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be – we want it to be safe. I think it’s going to be fine. Who knows for sure,” Trump said.
