- More than 20 world leaders to attend
- Mediators to ink guarantee document
- Captives, prisoners to be freed Monday
A Gaza ceasefire was holding for a third day Sunday, ahead of a proposed hostage-prisoner exchange and a summit aimed at charting a path to peace after two years of war.
US President Donald Trump is among the more than 20 world leaders expected in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh Monday for the Gaza peace summit co-hosted by his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. But neither Israel or Hamas will attend.
Among those expected to attend are UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Trump is due to arrive in Israel Monday to address the Knesset, the parliament, before traveling to Sharm El Sheikh for the summit.
Egypt has said 21 nations will take part, with representation also expected from the EU and Arab League, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, Indonesia, India and Germany, among others.
Iran also said it received an invitation, but did not indicate whether it would attend.
The mediating nations for the ceasefire deal in Gaza are to sign a document guaranteeing the agreement at the summit, a diplomatic source said.
“The signatories will be the guarantors — (the) US, Egypt, Qatar and likely Turkiye,” the diplomat said, after the Egyptian foreign ministry earlier said a document ending the war in Gaza was expected to be signed during the gathering.
Israel expects all hostages held in Gaza to be freed early Monday, a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office said, adding that all surviving captives are to be released simultaneously.
“The living hostages are to be released together at one time to the Red Cross and transported among six to eight vehicles,” Shosh Bedrosian told journalists.
The initial stage of the ceasefire deal includes the release of 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,700 Gazans held by Israel since the war broke out.
An Israeli official said the Palestinian prisoners would be “released once Israel has confirmation that all of our hostages are across the border into Israel”.
A Hamas source close to the group’s negotiating committee told AFP Sunday that it would not participate in governing post-war Gaza.
More than 200 trucks carrying aid destined for Gaza, including six diesel fuel trucks and five carrying cooking gas, were unloaded Sunday at the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Palestinian territory.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured back into a shattered Gaza City after the guns fell silent.
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