U.S. President Donald Trump joined other world leaders in Egypt on Oct. 13 to discuss the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and what comes next.Suzanne Plunkett/The Associated Press
The Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is sometimes referred to as the “City of Peace” because of the number of international summits it has played host to over the decades, from climate change to rebuilding Iraq.
But the Egyptian retreat had never seen anything quite like U.S. President Donald Trump’s brazen declaration on Monday that he had brought “peace in the Middle East,” during a whirlwind one-day tour of the region.
“Together we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East,” Mr. Trump said, before signing what he said was a “historic” agreement, along with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. They were among 20 world leaders, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, who hustled to Egypt on very short notice to make sure they were seen supporting Mr. Trump’s vaguely defined vision.
World leaders at Egypt summit throw their weight behind deal to end war in Gaza
The document, however, contained no details or timelines – only a fuzzily worded commitment to “to a future of lasting peace.”
Tellingly, the agreement was not signed by any of the belligerents.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was absent from the summit, after Mr. Erdogan reportedly threatened to cancel his own attendance if Mr. Netanyahu was there. Nor was anyone present from Hamas. But Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-governing powers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was there and briefly spoke with Mr. Trump.
Here's what you need to know about Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war, including the ceasefire deal, the toll of the war so far and what comes next.
Iran, the main foreign-backer of Hamas, said it had declined an invitation to attend the gathering. The country’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that Iran couldn’t engage diplomatically “with counterparts who have attacked the Iranian People and continue to threaten and sanction us” – referring to the joint Israeli-U.S. attacks on suspected Iranian nuclear sites earlier this year.
There were, of course, reasons for those in Sharm el-Sheikh to applaud.
Mr. Trump had indeed hammered out a significant diplomatic achievement over the preceding few days, coercing Israel and Hamas into a ceasefire deal. On Monday, that deal saw Hamas release the last 20 of the hostages it took on Oct. 7, 2023, in exchange for Israel freeing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.
The Israeli military says it has also pulled back from parts of Gaza, after a devastating war that killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. Both sides say the fighting has stopped, at least for now.
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But what Mr. Trump has done in practice is return Israel and the Palestinians to something like the status quo that existed before the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. And that situation was a long way from peace.
Hammering out a genuine end to a conflict that dates back to the 1948 creation of Israel has always come down to the finest of details. What would be the borders of a Palestinian state, if one is created? What rights would the generations of Palestinian refugees have? And who would rule Jerusalem, a city that both sides claim as their capital, and where almost every street and structure in the Old City is holy to one or more of Islam, Judaism and Christianity?
Answers to those problems remain as far away as ever. The more immediate unanswered questions include who will govern Gaza, if and when Hamas is disarmed. How will that disarmament happen, given reports that Hamas has mobilized thousands of fighters in recent days to retake control of Gaza’s streets? And who will rebuild the shattered coastal territory – a project that Jaco Cilliers, special representative to the Palestinians for the United Nations Development Programme, on Tuesday priced at US$70-billion?
None of the answers are contained in the Sharm el-Sheikh document, nor in the broader 20-point plan that Mr. Trump unveiled last week in Washington. The plan calls for Hamas to disarm and for some kind of international force to take control of Gaza, but charts no clear course toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state, something most countries – including Canada – support as the only feasible route to long-term peace.
Mr. Trump holds a signed document during the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.Suzanne Plunkett/The Associated Press
Amer Al Sabaileh, a columnist who writes on geopolitical affairs for The Jordan Times, said Mr. Trump appeared to be “rebranding” the approach to the Middle East that he pursued during his first term in the White House.
Central to that effort were the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab states agree to normalize relations with Israel, as well as the so-called “Deal of the Century” blueprint for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was drafted by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in 2020 – and immediately rejected by both Hamas and Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Al Sabaileh said he expected to see other Arab and Muslim countries, perhaps including Qatar, agree to join the Abraham Accords now that the war in Gaza was over. And the presence of Mr. Kushner in Jerusalem and Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday suggested that the Deal of the Century – seen as heavily in Israel’s favour since it granted the Jewish state sovereignty over Jerusalem and several illegally built settlements in the West Bank – appears to be back in play too.
“The missing part is still how to implement, how to do this,” Mr. Al Sabaileh said in an interview from Amman. “But if we want to see the positive side, there is no other vision. There is no alternative plan.”
There were already signs on Tuesday that the newly agreed ceasefire was in jeopardy of collapsing, just as two previous deals have. Those pacts, negotiated in November, 2023, and January, 2025, fell apart soon after hostages-for-prisoners exchanges – and just before Israel and Hamas were supposed to begin implementing the next steps in multiphase agreements.
On Tuesday, Israel accused Hamas of stalling on a part of the deal that would see the bodies of more than 20 dead hostages returned in exchange for the bodies of hundreds of dead Gazans killed in the fighting. Israel said it would keep the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed, and restrict the amount of humanitarian aid into the strip until it saw progress.