The mediators of the ceasefire in Gaza started gearing up for the tough, and possibly very long, negotiations on the second phase of the peace plan for Gaza. The task includes difficult and hard-to-define issues such as the disarmament of Hamas and the subsequent completion of the redeployment of the Israeli military in Gaza.
However, at least the starting segment of these negotiations will be supported by the beginning of the successful execution of the first phase of the plan that started going into effect on Friday and allowed for the release on Monday of nearly 2,000 Palestinians from Israeli jails, including 250 serving life sentences.
The first phase also included the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, even if below the amounts agreed on, and the release of the remaining 20 surviving Israeli hostages and the beginning of the handover of the bodies of the other Israeli hostages.
The phase-two negotiations may also find a good starting point in the political moment that unfolded on Monday with the visit of US President Donald Trump to Israel and Egypt to sign, watch over, and boast about the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire.
“The Trump visit and the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit for Peace sent a strong message about the commitment of the US and that of the international community to see this ceasefire hold and open the door for peace,” said one Egyptian diplomat.
In the late hours of Monday afternoon, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi received Trump in Sharm El-Sheikh, where he arrived from Israel. Trump met with top Israeli politicians and addressed the Knesset with a more than one-hour speech that centred on the unequivocal American support for Israel in war-time as in peace-time.
Al-Sisi and Trump held a bilateral meeting before joining a host of world leaders. They had come to the Red Sea resort and waited for three hours for the delayed arrival of Trump from Israel to show their firm support for the march towards a sustainable end to the two-year Israeli war on Gaza.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit saw the signing of a concise and undetailed one-page peace-endorsement document under the title “The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity”.
The document was signed by Al-Sisi, Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the latter two being the other mediators-turned-guarantors of the Gaza peace deal.
In their independent statements on Monday both in Israel and Egypt, however, Al-Sisi, Trump, and Netanyahu offered different narratives on what Middle East peace might be about.
Addressing the Sharm El-Sheikh gathering following the signing of the document, Al-Sisi said that the agreement allowing for an end to the war in Gaza offers “the birth of a glimmer of hope that this agreement could open a new door for peace and stability in the Middle East… [whereby] Palestinians, too, have the right to determine their destiny, to look forward to a future free from the spectre of war, and the right to enjoy freedom and to live in their independent state… a state living side by side with Israel, in peace, security, and mutual recognition.”
However, in his extended statement before the Israeli Knesset earlier on Monday, Trump declared that the Gaza deal was “a historic dawn of a new Middle East” and “the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region.”
He based this vision of the region on elements that are very different from those that Al-Sisi proposed. Trump spoke of the elimination of resistance — he labelled them “terror” — groups in the region.
While hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza were walking back home, mostly for the second time, from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip amid the debris of destruction and thousands of bodies still unrecovered, Trump congratulated members of the Knesset by saying that “you’ve won.” Addressing Netanyahu, he added “great job.”
He spoke about the expansion of the Abraham Accords and the Board of Peace that he plans for Gaza, something that will put the Strip under foreign rule and exclude not just Hamas but also the Palestinian Authority.
In a statement prior to Trump’s, Netanyahu reiterated his famous line — that Trump is the “greatest friend” Israel has ever had in the White House. “Mr President, you are committed to this peace. I am committed to this peace,” he said.
Sources close to the Sharm El-Sheikh negotiations had repeatedly said in no uncertain terms that had it not been for the pressure that Trump exercised on Netanyahu the deal that allowed for the ceasefire in Gaza would not have started.
In his speech before the Knesset, Trump praised Netanyahu for taking the “victory” instead of continuing the war indefinitely.
Trump had been open about the growing international isolation of Israel as a result of the war. Sources say that Trump’s later attempt to bring Netanyahu to the Sharm El-Sheikh summit, aborted by the threat of several participants to withdraw, was an endeavour to break this isolation.
As for the future, the sources said, Trump will not care very much provided that Netanyahu does not allow a new phase of the genocidal war to start. They say that with Hamas too weakened to launch an attack similar to that of 7 October 2023, Netanyahu will not have a pretext to re-start the war at the same level.
“Of course, Netanyahu can always find a reason or actually incite a reason, even with the presence of the International Stabilisation Force that Trump wants to have in Gaza,” said one of the sources close to the negotiations.
However, he added that this might take a while. “A good few weeks, at least, pending the return of all the bodies of the dead Israeli hostages, which will take some time given that the burial places of some of them have to still be identified,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian diplomat said that Egypt is working with Qatar, Turkey, France, and the US to start the reconstruction process in Gaza. While there is still no clear plan for the reconstruction, “something, maybe at a limited scale, will have to happen,” he said.
During his meeting with Trump in Sharm El-Sheikh, Al-Sisi said that Egypt is planning for a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza in November. During the signing event in the Red Sea resort, Trump said that “now the rebuilding begins.”
But it is not clear, sources agree, if Al-Sisi and Trump are talking about the same rebuilding. It is also not clear whether Trump, irrespective of his changing statements, is talking about reconstruction that would allow only some Gazans to stay and work in the tourism project that he earlier envisioned as the “Gaza Riviera”, or if he is talking about the Gaza of before 7 October 2023.
“It is too early to tell. Removing the rubble and debris in Gaza is going to be a very long and difficult process. For now, we are talking about some arrangements that will allow the Gazans to have some sort of roof over their heads as winter approaches,” said the Egyptian diplomat.
The rest, he added, will be subject to negotiation.
However, Israel on Tuesday sent signs that it might start making problems. In the morning it said it killed Palestinians who allegedly tried to cross the yellow designated line for movement. In the evening, Israel decided to suspend entry of humanitarian aid under the pretext of delay in the handover of the bodies of Israeli hostages.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said on Tuesday that progress has been made on the composition of the 15-member board that would be in charge of running Gaza.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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