The world-famous Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm El-Sheikh saw a rendez-vous with destiny this week when the peace plan of US President Donald Trump, unveiled on 29 September, was officially adopted by Israel and the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas on 8 October after marathon negotiating sessions led by mediators Egypt, Qatar, the US, and Turkey.
The Israeli Cabinet approved the ceasefire deal late on 10 October, though its five far-right ministers did not vote for it. The Sharm El-Sheikh Agreement, as the deal has come to be called, includes a ceasefire that went into effect at noon on 11 October, the release of the 48 remaining hostages, 20 living and the remains of those who have died in captivity, the setting free of almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners of war, and a surge of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
As expected, scenes of joy and jubilation were seen both in Israel and Gaza. Once the ceasefire took hold, thousands of Palestinians began a long march from the south of the Strip to Gaza City in the north. Many of them found their homes partially or completely destroyed by Israeli bombardments. Despite the destruction of most of the main city in the Strip, hopes for an end to a war that has almost pulverised the Strip over the last 24 months were high among the Palestinians.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Agreement dealing with the first stage of the Trump peace plan was warmly hailed around the world, with the international community hoping that an end to the war in Gaza will come close to establishing the foundations for a different, more peaceful, and more prosperous Middle East.
However, there are some serious question marks concerning the second part of the plan that includes the disarmament of Hamas, the nature of the transitional body that will govern the Strip under the supervision of a Board of Peace headed by Trump, and the composition of the international stabilisation force that will oversee domestic security in Gaza.
To answer these questions, or, to be more precise, to agree on the major elements that will be needed to carry out these three missions, a historic international summit took place in Sharm El-Sheikh on 13 October at the invitation of both President Trump and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and attended by world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset on 13 October before heading to Sharm El-Sheikh to inaugurate a summit that could go down in history as the first shot in the serious pursuit of security and peace for the peoples and countries of the Middle East. No one a month ago would have believed or expected that things would move so fast towards ending the war in Gaza. Credit should go to Trump for his political courage in pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hard to accept such a deal.
He left no chance to Netanyahu to maoeuvre and to thwart the White House’s will and determination to end a war that has become identified with the political and personal interest of one man – in other words, Netanyahu himself, who has perpetuated the war to avoid at any cost the day of reckoning in Israel when it ends.
The minute Trump recognised this fact, particularly after the failed Israeli attempt to assassinate the top leadership of Hamas at a meeting in Qatar, he seems to have believed that the time had come, from the standpoint of America’s strategic interests in the Middle East, to tell Netanyahu that enough is enough.
Support for Israel in the United States has taken a severe hit in both the Republican and Democratic parties, and even within the rank and file of the MAGA movement that represents Trump’s support base. There have been questions about why American taxpayers should keep on funding a war that does not have clear military objectives, and even Steve Bannon, one of the earliest strategists campaigning for the election and re-election of Trump, has said that a “protectorate,” referring to Israel, should not be allowed to dictate policies to the United States.
One of the most unexpected results of the war Israel launched against Gaza back in October 2023 is that neither Netanyahu nor his extreme-right ministers had seen this drastic change of mood in the United States towards Israel coming. This reality has finally dawned on them, and this is probably one of the reasons that made them approve Trump’s peace plan.
On the other hand, Egypt’s President Al-Sisi has been playing a major role in pushing for an end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza, and he has firmly opposed any displacement, forced or voluntary, of the Palestinians from Gaza. In fact, he was the first world leader who opposed any such displacement publicly in his opening remarks at the Cairo Peace Conference on 21 October 2023. He also insisted on working for a solution to the Palestinian question based on the two-state solution.
People may ask what guarantees there are for the implementation of the Trump plan in its entirety. This is a good question, and the answer is that an unwavering commitment on the part of Trump towards regional peace is the best guarantee. His commitment to expanding the Abraham Accords that were signed between Israel and some Arab countries during his first term in office (2017-2021) will most likely contribute to the perseverance of the US administration in pushing all the parties concerned to fulfill their respective commitments as laid down in the Trump plan.
On Airforce One, as he headed for the Middle East on 13 October to visit Israel and Egypt in a whirlwind tour that could mark the region for decades to come, Trump said that the “war is over.” The Sharm El-Sheikh Summit was convened precisely to fulfill this promise. An editorial in the UK Financial Times on 12 October hit the bull’s eye, when it expressed the opinion that the release of the Israeli hostages on 13 October would be a “momentous moment” and “only the first step towards peace.”
In both his remarks before the Israeli Knesset and at Sharm El-Sheikh, Trump demonstrated his strong commitment to ending the war in Gaza as well as laying the foundations for regional security and peace.
* The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: