SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — President Donald Trump arrived in Egypt on Monday for a global summit on Gaza’s future as he tries to advance peace in the Middle East after visiting Israel to celebrate a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Hamas.
Watch the president speak in the player above.
The whirlwind trip, which included a speech at the Knesset in Jerusalem earlier in the day, comes at a fragile moment of hope for ending two years of war between Israel and Hamas.
“Everybody said it’s not possible to do. And it’s going to happen. And it is happening before your very eyes,” Trump said alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
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Nearly three dozen countries, including some from Europe and the Middle East, are represented at the summit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited but declined, with his office saying it was too close to a Jewish holiday.
Despite unanswered questions about next steps in Gaza, which has been devastated during the conflict, Trump is determined to seize an opportunity to chase an elusive regional harmony.
“We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us, and to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past,” Trump plans to say during the summit, according to excerpts released by the White House.
He expressed a similar sense of finality about the war in his speech at the Knesset, which welcomed him as a hero.
“You’ve won,” he told Israeli lawmakers. “Now it is time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”
President Donald Trump speaks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion International Airport on Oct. 13 before boarding his plane to Sharm El-Sheikh. Trump is visiting the country hours after Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages captured on Oct. 7, 2023, part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Trump promised to help rebuild Gaza, and he urged Palestinians to “turn forever from the path of terror and violence.”
“After tremendous pain and death and hardship,” he said, “now is the time to concentrate on building their people up instead of trying to tear Israel down.”
Trump even made a gesture to Iran, where he bombed three nuclear sites during the country’s brief war with Israel earlier this year, by saying “the hand of friendship and cooperation is always open.”
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