President Donald Trump addressed the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, on Monday before traveling to Egypt for a peace summit to mark the first steps of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The final 20 remaining living hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, were returned to Israel on Monday as part of an exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, officials said.
Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has for two years waged a brutal and systematic war against Hamas, are returning home and beginning to reckon with the destruction caused by the conflict.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has awarded the Nile Collar — Egypt’s highest state honour — to President Donald Trump for “his significant contributions to promoting peace, resolving conflicts, and most recently, his pivotal role in ending the war in Gaza,” El-Sisi’s office said in a statement.
At Monday’s peace summit, El-Sisi said the award is presented “in recognition of President Trump’s efforts” and is typically reserved for heads of state who provide “distinguished services to humanity.”
Four coffins containing the remains of deceased hostages are now in the custody of the Israel Defence Forces and Israeli Security Agency forces and are on their way to Israel, the IDF said.
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“Before crossing into Israeli territory, a military protocol will be held in the Gaza Strip in their memory,” the IDF said. “During the protocol, IDF soldiers will drape the hostages’ coffins with Israeli flags, salute them, and recite a chapter from the Book of Psalms.”
Once in Israel, the coffins will be brought to the National Center of Forensic Medicine for identifications, the IDF said.
President Trump claimed at the peace summit in Egypt that “the war in Gaza is over,” though only the first phase of an agreement has been reached.
“Together we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible — at long last, we have peace in the Middle East,” Trump said to the more than 30 world leaders gathered at the summit.
The president said now “the rebuilding begins,” and he said rebuilding may be the “easiest part.”
“All the momentum now is toward a great, glorious and lasting peace, and our commitment to fulfilling the 20-point plan we developed together will be the crucial foundation for achieving that bright future,” Trump said. “And it’s being worked on right now as we speak, and we’re actually in stage three and four.”
Phase one has now been agreed upon, and Trump said in earlier remarks in Egypt that phase two of ceasefire negotiations has started.
“Where we can be long advanced on some of the things that we say we’re going to do, we can take them out of order in a positive way,” Trump explained.
ABC
