World leaders gathering in Egypt throw their weight behind the Gaza ceasefire deal

By FAY ABULGASIM and SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press SHARM EL SHEIKH Egypt AP The U S and Egyptian presidents are chairing a gathering of world leaders dubbed Summit for Peace on Monday to help ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal Related Articles The Latest Palestinians journey back home as aid convoys enter Gaza and truce holds Israel expects hostages to be freed from Gaza in a sparse hours as ceasefire holds Palestinians return to ruins and US expects hostages freed on Monday as Gaza ceasefire holds America s aging prison population is posing challenges for states AstraZeneca agrees to lower drug prices for Medicaid under Trump administration deal Israel and Hamas have no direct contacts and were not expected to attend Monday s summit The Israeli prime minister s office commented Benjamin Netanyahu will not journey to the venue because of a Jewish holiday Israel has rejected any role in Gaza for the internationally backed Palestinian Authority whose leader Mahmoud Abbas arrived in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh early on Monday afternoon ahead of the gathering The summit comes as Hamas published remaining living Israeli hostages and Israel started to free hundreds of Palestinians from its prisons crucial procedures after a ceasefire began on Friday But major questions remain unanswered over what happens next raising the jeopardy of slide back into war even as the world pushes for peace A new page Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi s office noted the summit aims to end the war in Gaza and usher in a new page of peace and regional stability in line with U S President Donald Trump s vision FILE Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi speaks during a joint news conference in Athens on Wednesday May AP Photo Petros Giannakouris File The two sides came under pressure from the United States Arab countries and Turkey to agree on the ceasefire s first phase negotiated in Qatar In March Egypt proposed a postwar plan for Gaza that would allow its million people to remain At the time that was a counterproposal to a Trump plan to depopulate the territory The two leaders co-chairing the international summit signals that they are working together on a path forward Ahead of the gathering Egypt s foreign minister revealed it was also crucial that Israel and Hamas fully implement the first phase of the deal so that the parties with international backing can begin negotiations on the second phase The success of Trump s vision for Mideast peace is his continued commitment to the process including applying pressure on the parties engagement and even deployment on the ground with international forces expected to carry out peacekeeping duties in the next phase stated Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty We need American engagement even deployment on the ground to identify the mission task and mandate of this force Abdelatty advised The Associated Press Directly tackling the remaining issues in depth is unlikely at the gathering expected to last about two hours El-Sissi and Trump are expected to issue a joint message after it ends Under the first phase Israeli troops pulled back from particular parts of Gaza allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to return home from areas they were forced to evacuate Aid groups are preparing to bring in large quantities of aid kept out of the territory for months Critical challenges ahead The negotiations will have to tackle the issues of disarming Hamas creating a post-war governing body for Gaza and the extent of Israel s withdrawal from the territory Trump s plan also stipulates that regional and international partners will work to develop the core of a new Palestinian shield force A police conveyance in front of a poster showing Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and U S President Donald Trump at the Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt Monday Oct AP Photo Amr Nabil Abdelatty revealed the international force requirements a U N Guard Council resolution to endorse its deployment and mandate as a peacekeeping force Another major issue is raising funds for rebuilding Gaza The World Bank and Egypt s postwar plan estimate reconstruction and recovery requirements in Gaza at billion Egypt plans to host a future reconstruction conference Before the truce was agreed on Israel and Hamas staunch enemies who have little trust in each other and a number of failed negotiations behind them held negotiations in Doha Qatar s capital through indirect talks with Egypt and Qatar as meditators Iran a main backer of Hamas is also not attending the summit in Egypt as the Islamic Republic finds itself at one of its weakest moments since its revolution Iranian leaders portrayed the ceasefire deal as a domination for Hamas The deal however underlined Iran s waning influence in the region and revived concerns over practicable renewed conflict with Israel as it still struggles to recover from the -day war in June A state function The summit in Egypt is likely to see world leaders praise Trump s push for the ceasefire For his part el-Sissi is almost certainly relieved that plans to depopulate the Gaza Strip have been ditched Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani are attending Turkey which hosted Hamas political leaders for years played a key role in bringing about the ceasefire agreement King Abdullah of Jordan is among the expected attendees His country alongside Egypt will train the new Palestinian defense force Germany one of Israel s strongest international backers and top suppliers of military equipment plans to be represented by Chancellor Friedrich Merz He has expressed concern over Israel s conduct of the war and its plan for a military takeover of Gaza Britain s Prime Minister is Keir Starmer is among the leaders attending He has declared will pledge million dollars to help provide water and sanitation for Gaza and reported Britain will host a three-day conference to coordinate plans for Gaza s reconstruction and recovery French President Emmanuel Macron left attends a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the sidelines of the Gaza International Peace Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt Monday Oct Yoan Valat Pool photo via AP U N Secretary-General Ant nio Guterres European Union President Ant nio Costa and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are attending The venue Sharm el-Sheikh the Red Sea resort at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula has been host to multiple peace negotiations in the past decades The town was briefly occupied by Israel for a year in After Israel withdrew a United Nations peacekeeping force was stationed there until when Egypt s President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the peacekeepers to leave a move that precipitated the Six-Day War that year Sharm el-Sheikh and the rest of the Sinai Peninsula were returned to Egypt in following a peace treaty with Israel Though now more known for luxury beach resorts dive sites and desert tours Sharm el-Sheikh has also hosted various peace summits and rounds of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians under President Hosni Mubarak ousted in as well as other international conferences Monday s gathering is the first peace summit under el-Sissi El Deeb contributed from Cairo