Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he plans to address the Israeli Knesset and meet Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to discuss reconstruction efforts and ensure the long-term success of the deal.
“I’ll be going to Israel. I’ll be speaking at the Knesset, I think early on. And then I’m also going to Egypt,” Trump told reporters. “They were terrific. I think you’re going to have tremendous success and Gaza is going to be rebuilt.”
Trump added that the time has come for peace, not confrontation, and this deal is good for everyone: for the Israelis, for the Arabs, and for the entire world.
He stressed that work is underway to ensure the ceasefire holds, emphasizing that the United States is making intensive efforts with all parties to sustain it and transform it into lasting peace.
The US President declared that the agreement reached regarding the ceasefire in Gaza represents "the most important peace deal ever reached," stressing that the next phase of the plan is proceeding with broad consensus among the parties involved.
His remarks came a day after the Egypt-, Qatar-, Turkey- and US-brokered ceasefire took effect, halting Israel's two-year genocidal war that has reduced most of the Gaza Strip to rubble and killed over 67,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,000, most of them women and children.
Under the deal, Israeli forces began withdrawing from Gaza City, Khan Younis, and parts of the central strip, while Hamas agreed to release 20 Israeli captives within 72 hours in exchange for 2,000 Palestinian detainees.
Trump said plans were underway to establish a new international body to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and regional stabilization.
“We’re also setting up, as you know, a board of peace,” he said. “It’s called the board of peace. I don’t know if that’s the final name, but the word peace is definitely in there. And they asked me if I chair it. We’ll make sure things go well.”
The US President added that rebuilding efforts would rely on regional funding.
“You have some very wealthy countries, as you know, over there,” Trump said. “It would take a small fraction of their wealth to do that. And I think they want to do it.”
On Friday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to coordinate an upcoming international summit on Gaza in Sharm El-Sheikh, which Trump and El-Sisi are set to co-chair.
The summit, called by President El-Sisi, aims to rally global support for Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Israeli war on Gaza.
Secretary Rubio described it as a “unique historical event” and praised El-Sisi's “distinguished and pioneering role” in facilitating the ceasefire, according to Egypt’s foreign ministry.
Axios reported, citing four sources familiar with the plans, that Egypt has reached out to the leaders or foreign ministers of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia, inviting them to participate.
Cautious optimism
At the presser, President Trump expressed cautious optimism that the truce would hold.
“Yeah, I think it’ll hold,” he said. “They’re all tired of the fighting.”
His confidence was bolstered by US envoy Steve Witkoff's confirmation that Israel had completed the first phase of its troop withdrawal.
“The 72-hour period to release the hostages has begun,” Witkoff said Friday, citing the Pentagon and US Central Command.
Immediately after the ceasefire went into effect on Friday at noon, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began marching back towards Gaza City and the north of the Strip after two years of displacement.
Television footage showed long columns of people walking along Al-Rashid Road and Salah al-Din Street, carrying what belongings they could.
“Approximately 200,000 people returned to northern Gaza today,” said Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the local civil defence agency.
Scale of reconstruction needed
On Friday, a new report by the Gaza Government Media Office estimates that Israel’s two-year war on the strip has caused $70 billion in direct losses across key sectors.
The report says Israeli forces dropped more than 200,000 tonnes of explosives on the enclave, destroying or damaging nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s buildings and crippling its major public services.
Israeli bombardments completely destroyed 268,000 homes, inflicting an estimated $28 billion in losses on the housing sector. Air strikes damaged 95 percent of schools and 38 hospitals, pushing the Strip’s public services to the brink of collapse.
Israeli attacks also devastated agriculture, utilities, and transport, wiping out 94 percent of farmland and eliminating Gaza’s fishing industry. The media office warns that the destruction has plunged the enclave into a man-made famine.
A spokesperson for the media office described the war as “one of the most terrible crimes in contemporary history,” accusing Israel of systematically targeting homes, schools, and hospitals in a campaign of mass destruction.
The Palestinian Health Ministry stated that Israeli attacks have killed or left missing at least 67,000 Palestinians since the start of the genocidal war on the strip in October 2023, including 20,000 children and 12,500 women.
Moreover, more than 170,000 Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli bombardment, and thousands remain buried under the rubble in the strip.
Egypt has reiterated its intention to lead, in cooperation with international partners, the reconstruction process in Gaza. The United Nations and several Western powers have expressed their readiness to contribute to rebuilding the strip.
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