President Donald Trump yesterday called for a new era of harmony in the Middle East during a global summit on Gaza’s future.
“We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us,” Trump said, and he urged leaders “to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past.”
His Majesty King Hamad headed Bahrain’s delegation to the summit, hosted by Egypt in Sharm el Sheikh.
Leaders from 20 Middle East and European countries attended the summit, co-chaired by President Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.
Upon his arrival at the summit hall, His Majesty was received by President Al Sisi, who thanked him for accepting the invitation to participate in the summit.
Afterwards, His Majesty and the leaders witnessed the signing of a comprehensive document on the Gaza Agreement.
It was signed by President Trump, President Al Sisi, the Amir of Qatar Shaikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Egypt’s presidency said that discussions included the governance, security and reconstruction of Gaza.
“Now the rebuilding begins,” Trump said at the summit, delivering an expansive speech where he described in grand terms the Gaza agreement he helped broker, saying it could be ‘the greatest deal of them all’.
The Egyptian President stressed the importance of implementing the two-state solution and said he would host a summit for the reconstruction of Gaza.
Trump’s whirlwind trip, which included the summit in Egypt and a speech at the Knesset in Jerusalem earlier in the day, comes at a fragile moment of hope for ending two years of war between Israel and Hamas.
“Everybody said it’s not possible to do. And it’s going to happen. And it is happening before your very eyes,” Trump said alongside President Al Sissi.
He promised to help rebuild Gaza.
Hamas earlier in the day freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza under the ceasefire deal and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees,
The Israeli military said it had received all 20 hostages confirmed to be alive, after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross.
In Gaza, thousands of relatives, many weeping with joy, gathered at a hospital where buses brought home some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the accord.
The Israeli hostages freed were the last still alive in captivity from 251 seized in the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023.
The ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal agreed last week halted one of Israel’s biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City that was killing scores of people per day.
Since then, huge numbers of Palestinians have been able to return to the ruins of homes in the Gaza Strip, swathes of which were reduced to a wasteland by Israeli bombardment that killed 68,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
Formidable obstacles remain, even to securing an enduring ceasefire, much less to bringing a wider, more durable peace.
Aid supplies must be rushed into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people face famine. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to “get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in”.
Beyond that, crucial issues have yet to be resolved, including how to govern and police Gaza, and the ultimate future of Hamas.
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