The American President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, will preside over a peace summit in Gaza. The meeting will take place on Monday afternoon, October 13th, in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, by the Red Sea, with the participation of leaders from over 20 countries, reports IPN.
Citing sources from the Egyptian presidency, The Guardian writes that the summit aims to “end the war in the Gaza Strip, strengthen efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability”.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, as well as the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, have confirmed their participation. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, will also be present.
At the moment, it is not clear whether the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will participate in the summit, while the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announced that they will not take part.
The summit is organized following a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas, concluded after intense negotiations held in recent days in Sharm el-Sheikh. The war broke out after the attack launched by Hamas in Israel, on October 7, 2023, as a result of which approximately 1,200 people were killed, and over 250 were taken hostage. In Israel’s subsequent attacks on the Gaza Strip, over 67,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, lost their lives.
The negotiations, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, with the involvement of American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, led to the hastening of the armistice and the subsequent increase in humanitarian aid for the population of Gaza.
For many residents of the Gaza Strip, however, there is no longer a home to return to, as the intense bombings of the past two years have turned their neighborhoods into ruins, notes The Guardian.
