Trump sets sights on peace with Iran as he hails ‘end of Gaza war’ | Israel

Donald Trump has vowed to use the power of his presidency to get Israel to admit that it has achieved “everything it can do by force of arms” and usher in an era of cooperation in the Middle East that could eventually lead to peace with Iran.

In a speech to the Israeli Knesset hours after the last remaining Israeli hostage was released from Gaza, Trump hailed the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” and the end of the “long and painful nightmare” of the Gaza war.

“This is not only the end of war, but also the end of the age of terror and death,” the US President said. “With our help, Israel has won everything it can by force of arms. Now it is time to turn these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

These words of Trump, who repeatedly insisted that Israel’s military victory was complete, were intended to reassure Arab countries that he would neither allow Israel to restart the conflict with Hamas nor allow Hamas to reestablish itself in Gaza.

Trump then flew to Egypt to deliver his message of optimism to a summit of more than 20 world leaders dedicated to endorsing the peace plan, the reconstruction of Gaza and a limited form of Palestinian self-government. The guarantors of the peace agreement (USA, Türkiye, Qatar and Egypt) also signed a comprehensive document determining their responsibilities in maintaining peace and the path towards Palestinian self-government.

The summit was jointly hosted by Trump and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. At the opening of the summit, Trump told reporters that the second phase of the Gaza plan to rebuild the strip was already underway. He told reporters: “The second phase has already started. The phases are all a bit mixed together. You can start the cleanup. You look at Gaza, there is a lot of cleanup.”

The US is already asking rich Arab countries to allocate huge sums of money to Gaza, which it describes as “10 times the size of rubble”. Estimates of reconstruction costs exceeded $30 billion.

A confident Trump predicted: “Gaza will be demobilized, Hamas will be disarmed, and Israel’s security will no longer be threatened.”

The US president also sent a thinly coded message that Israel was losing popular support due to its dependence on power. He said: “In the last few months, it’s starting to become a period where the world wants peace and Israel wants peace. If you had continued for another three or four years, if you had continued to fight and fight and fight, things were getting worse, they were getting escalated. So the timing of this is great. I said: ‘Bibi [referring to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu]’If you keep this up, you’ll be remembered a lot more than just kill, kill, kill.’”

Trump also said he would pressure Arab countries to sign the Abraham Accords “quickly and without hesitation.” The agreement requires Arab states to recognize Israel. He insisted that Iran was also ready for peace.

European diplomats privately warn that the speed of the ceasefire means that plans for an international stabilization force and a Palestinian civilian police force must be accelerated if proposals to disarm Hamas come to fruition. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza alone since 2007, has said it does not want to be part of Gaza’s new technocratic government but has insisted it will disarm a Palestinian-led force only under certain conditions.

Israel has said it will no longer withdraw Israeli Defense Forces from their current positions in Gaza as long as Gaza’s tunnel and weapons network remains under Hamas control.

France, the US and the UK have said they are willing to support the international force, but the credibility of the force is acknowledged to come from soldiers from Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Türkiye who attended the summit. France is also pushing for the force to be given a UN mandate similar to the UN force in Lebanon.

A separate civilian police force of the Palestinian National Authority was also trained mainly in Egypt and Jordan to enter Gaza; but French diplomatic sources said that if this force was not deployed quickly it would risk finding itself in conflict with a resurgent Hamas. Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu attended the summit.

Trump insisted he would do his part in Palestine’s future by chairing the peace council that would oversee the vast reconstruction program and largely oversee the Palestinian technocratic government. He said he wanted Sisi to be on the board but was testing opinion in the region to see if there was support for Sir Tony Blair to also be on the board.

Trump met with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time in eight years, shook his hand and gave him the thumbs up. Just two weeks ago, Trump banned Abbas from New York and the UN general assembly.

French President Emmanuel Macron, one of the politicians most involved in keeping the two-state solution alive, said upon his arrival in Egypt that Abbas’s participation was “a very good signal… This is a recognition of the role that the Palestinian Authority must play as a legitimate entity.”

“We will have a special role to stand with the Palestinian Authority on governance issues, to ensure that it does its part and makes reforms the next day.” The authority promised that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held within a year.

Macron also called for Israel’s stance in the West Bank, where it is subject to accelerated settlements, to not be forgotten and to continue efforts to establish an official Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“We must connect Gaza to the West Bank,” he said, “and ensure that there is a path to two states, which is the only political perspective that truly allows for lasting peace.” On the security front, Macron stated that the Europeans would “increase” the training of Palestinian police officers in Gaza, but that France would not directly participate in the stabilization force that would be created.

He said there was a “consensus” that there should be “contribution especially from regional powers and perhaps some countries like Indonesia”. However, these countries demand that this be done within the “international framework”, that is, at the UN. Macron also stated that France will organize a conference on humanitarian aid to Gaza together with Egypt and will host this conference “in the coming weeks.”