Countdown to hostage release as Trump to host Gaza peace summit

PRISONER DEAL

Hamas will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview.

After Trump’s visit to Israel on Monday, he and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a summit of leaders from more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian presidency announced.

The meeting will aim “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security”, it said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Hamas and Israel are not expected to take part.

Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand over its weapons and step aside from running Gaza.

A Hamas source close to the group’s negotiating committee told AFP on Sunday that it would not participate in post-war Gaza governance.

“Hamas will not participate at all in the transitional phase, which means it has relinquished control of the Strip, but it remains a fundamental part of the Palestinian fabric,” the source said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

But the official pushed back on calls for Hamas to lay down its weapons.

“Hamas agrees to a long-term truce, and for its weapons not to be used at all during this period, except in the event of an Israeli attack on Gaza,” the source said.

Under the Trump plan, as Israel conducts a phased withdrawal from Gaza’s cities, it will be replaced by a multi-national force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,682 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.

The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.