President Donald Trump joined more than 20 world leaders in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday for talks on Gaza’s future with the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement underway.
Among those gathered for the summit were Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and former prime minister Tony Blair, as well as officials from Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.
The group posed for a family picture in front of a sign that read “Peace 2025” before a signing ceremony on the agreement. “This took 3,000 years to get to this point. Can you believe it? And it’s going to hold up too. It’s going to hold up,” Trump said in the middle of signing the documents.
Trump is also set to deliver formal remarks in which he will tout the breakthrough as a turning point for the region. “This is the day that people across this region and around the world have been working, striving, hoping, and praying for. With the historic agreement we have just signed, those prayers of millions have finally been answered. Together, we have achieved the impossible,” Trump will say, according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House.
“All the momentum now is toward a great, glorious, and lasting peace,” he is expected to say. Noticeably absent from the signing ceremony and talks in Egypt, though, were representatives for Hamas and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office cited the Jewish holiday as the reason for his absence, despite his having been directly invited by President Trump.
Just hours before, Trump and Netanyahu heaped praise on one another as Trump addressed Israel’s parliament. Trump hailed Netanyahu as “one of the greatest” wartime leaders, and Netanyahu called Trump Israel’s “greatest friend” ever in the White House.