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President Donald Trump will look to seal the biggest diplomatic achievement of his second term when he travels to the Middle East to announce a deal to end the Israel-Hamas war and welcome hostages who emerged from two years of subjugation.
The fragile ceasefire stands as a major test of Trump’s conciliatory abilities, which will solidify his goal of being remembered as a peacemaker, if it holds. The president’s team is betting that his personal guarantees — and the watchful eye of the U.S. military — can keep the agreement intact. Trump plans to stop in Israel and Egypt on Monday to celebrate the agreement and plan next steps for the violence-ravaged region.
As he left for the Middle East on Sunday, Trump said he was optimistic the parties would stick to the agreement.
“I don’t think they would want to let me down,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “I have a lot of verbal guarantees – guarantees that are not in writing, but they were given to me and I believe they will be held very firmly. So I think it’s going to be successful.”
Still, anything could go wrong in the coming days that could undermine the agreement, making it another short-term pause in the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East that long predates Israel’s founding 77 years ago. There are a number of ways the ceasefire could sour – and these risks are all the more reason for Trump’s administration to remain involved, a US official told reporters ahead of the visit.
If the agreement holds, it would be a major step toward lasting peace, which, so far, neither Trump nor his predecessor, Joe Biden, has been able to secure despite multiple negotiations following the war triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. It came as the president pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and used Arab allies to conduct shuttle diplomacy with Hamas, which is considered a one-stop solution. Terrorist groups by the US and EU.
The return of the hostages would deprive Hamas of the powerful bargaining chip it used against Israel – but analysts say the group has now decided it should be better used. Convincing Netanyahu to gradually withdraw from Gaza and give up his ambition to control the territory could stop the massacre there and give Palestinians a chance to reverse their global isolation.
“The Trump administration convinced both sides that continuing the war on the current trajectory is worse than entering into its framework,” Michael Herzog, Israel’s former ambassador to the US, said during a virtual event hosted by the Washington Institute think tank on Friday. “However, it is clear that major challenges lie ahead of us. There remain major questions about the next steps.”
The whirlwind trip is vintage Trump: the dealmaker-in-chief swooping in with ink that hasn’t yet dried – and the fine print not yet erased. Still, for the president, the mere possibility of a deal is reason enough to go abroad as he seeks to codify his legacy.
“I think this will continue. They’re all tired of fighting. Don’t forget that you have October 7, which was a terrible day, 1,200 people were killed, but Hamas has lost 58,000 people. This is big retaliation, this is big retaliation,” Trump said on Friday, apparently referring to the Palestinian death toll cited by the Hamas-run health ministry – and slightly understating it.
“But it’s beyond Gaza. It’s peace in the Middle East, and that’s a beautiful thing,” Trump said.
Trump will arrive in Israel on Monday, where he will meet with hostage families and address the Knesset before flying to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he will co-host a peace summit with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi that will be joined by a number of Arab and European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Abraham Accords were seen as one of the biggest foreign-policy achievements of Trump’s first term, with several Arab and Muslim countries normalizing relations with Israel. Hamas began its brutal offensive across the border two years ago amid speculation that Saudi Arabia, one of the region’s biggest powers, was ready to get involved.
Ending the war might provide space for those negotiations to resume.
More immediately, it would stop the killing in Gaza and allow reconstruction of the territory torn apart by Israeli attacks, which led to a humanitarian disaster and killed thousands of civilians. The brutal nature of Israel’s military campaign damaged relations with many traditional Western allies, who recognized the Palestinian state at the United Nations last month.
Ensuring that the deal lasts beyond its first phase, a prisoner-for-hostage exchange between Israel and the Palestinians, will not be easy. Key details remain up in the air.
The White House announced Friday that a 72-hour deadline to release the hostages had begun, putting the onus on Hamas to deliver about 20 captives alive and the remains of others. Future steps in Trump’s outline, including how Hamas would disarm, which countries would form a stabilization force to patrol Gaza and how quickly Israeli forces would withdraw and where they would go — are undecided.
Vice President J.D. Vance said on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, “Inevitably, there are going to be conflicts here. These are things that the people of Gaza disagree with Israel about, that the Israelis disagree with the Gulf Arab countries about.” “We really see our role as mediating some of those disputes and making sure that the pressure is on everyone to achieve durable and lasting peace.”
What comes to mind is how the President will ensure that Israel does not take up arms in Gaza after obtaining the hostages. Netanyahu and members of his right-wing coalition have said it is necessary to destroy Hamas and that they cannot accept a future Palestinian state.
Will Todman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “As far as we understand, Trump has guaranteed to Hamas that he will guarantee that Israel will not restart this war. And I think it’s very unclear what that guarantee will look like.”
Trump on Friday dodged a question about the guarantees but acknowledged that work remains. “There is consensus on most of it and like everything else, some details will be worked out,” he said.
The deal was quickly reached this week, after talks began in August over a possible small-scale prisoner exchange. He drafted a list of principles that would eventually become Trump’s 20-point plan.
Trump’s top envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, flew to Egypt and then Israel to seal the deal on Wednesday after several marathon meetings.
US officials said Trump joined in at several points, with Witkoff or Kushner dialing him in and putting their iPhone on speaker to talk to him. Trump called on his allies to reach a compromise, and said the end of the war should not return Gaza to the way it was before.
Officials said Trump’s personal involvement, and the presence of close advisers, was an essential signal of US involvement and critical to convincing other parties to sign on.
Trump has guaranteed that all parties will stick to the agreement, one official said. This week’s trip will double the pledge. 200 US troops will also be allocated to establish an International Stabilization Force, some of which are based in Israel.
US officials said Netanyahu is confident Trump will do nothing to jeopardize his security – and therefore, he can discuss “constructive” solutions with Israel regarding the future of Gaza and address requests from other countries that Israel would not agree to.
That dynamic eliminated what one U.S. official called the scenario and folly that had plagued earlier peace talks.
Many Democrats praised Trump for his role in striking the deal.
“I think he deserves a lot of credit,” Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “Now we have to see what happens next. My hope is that the Saudis, the Emiratis, they will step up and do what they said they would do, which is to invest in the reconstruction of Gaza.”
Trump’s visit comes on the heels of the recent announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Trump lobbied hard. Ultimately this year’s award went to the Venezuelan opposition leader. If the Middle East deal holds, Trump may have a stronger argument for winning it in the future.
With assistance from Josh Wingrove, Ross Krasny, and Maria Paula Mijares Torres.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
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