Trump declares 'peace in the Middle East' during Egypt speech

No US president has delivered a speech in Egypt since Barack Obama's now infamous 2009 Cairo speech on "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims". 

It was, in hindsight, no new beginning at all. But Monday's Gaza summit for peace in Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh might be, if President Donald Trump has his way. 

"At long last, we have peace in the Middle East," Trump declared on stage, flanked by 20 of some 35 world leaders he invited. 

A ceasefire in Gaza went into effect on Friday. Hamas said it has been given assurances by Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the US that Israel will not resume its attacks on the enclave.

"After years of suffering and bloodshed, the war in Gaza is over, humanitarian aid is now pouring in, including hundreds of truckloads of food, medical equipment and other supplies, much of it paid for by people in this room," Trump said, echoing earlier remarks to the press about the importance of acknowledging "some of the richest countries" in attendance that will be picking up the tab on Gaza's reconstruction.

"Rebuilding is maybe going to be the easiest part. I think we've done a lot of the hardest part because the rest comes together," Trump added.

Much of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to ash, including its electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. Over 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which has been recognised as a genocide by the United Nations, genocide scholars and rights groups. 

US will be 'dug in' Gaza reconstruction

Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters that the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire - the rebuilding - "started, as far as we're concerned".

"And you know, the phases are all a little bit mixed in with each other. You can start cleaning up," he said. 

His peace envoy Steve Witkoff is leading that initiative, Witkoff himself said. 

"The minute we had inked the deal, Jared and I were already working on the implementation side of the deal," Witkoff explained, referring to Trump's son-in-law, who is a private citizen but has deep business ties to the Gulf and personal ties to Israel. 

"So we're dug in. We'll be here quite a bit. That's at the direction of the president. That's probably going to be one of the most important phases here. Jared is remarkable to work with."

After his brief meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump took the stage in front of more than a dozen world leaders. He recalled that it was his meeting with the leaders of Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, and Pakistan in September that spurred him into action on Gaza.

Trump said the "final sprint to this deal" took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, when the countries presented the original language of the 20-point plan for Gaza. 

"You're friends, you're great people... I actually have people who I don't like at all, but you'll never find out who they are," he added.

Abraham Accords 

In both Israel and Egypt, Trump repeated his plea for countries to join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalisation deals his first administration struck between three Arab countries and Israel, which Trump considers his signature foreign policy achievement. 

"I hope everybody joins the Abraham Accords," he said. Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined the agreement. The US was in talks with Saudi Arabia about joining before the negotiations were derailed by the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel. 

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In his speech, Trump noted that all the countries that signed the accords remained in them despite Israel's two-year-long genocide in Gaza. 

"They do extremely well as they're wealthy, but they're a lot wealthier because of it. So I hope everybody's now joining up. Now we have no excuses. We don't have a Gaza and we don't have Iran as an excuse," he said, alluding to what many Arab ruling families see as the key threats in the region. 

"This is a monumental moment in the history of the world beyond the Middle East," Trump continued, saying that he and fellow world leaders in the room agreed to support Gaza in order to lift up its people, and that a new non-Hamas police force must be in place in the enclave to help restore stability. 

Trump did not go into further detail, but members of the pre-war Gaza police have been out on the streets since Friday to give residents, they said, a sense of safety. Trump said he approved of the deployment of Hamas fighters to prevent crime on Monday. 

"We're going to make sure that the Middle East is going to be a safe and secure place," he said. 

Nobel Prize nomination

No Palestinian representation was on stage, and Trump did not use the term "Palestinians" in any of his remarks on this trip, instead opting for "people of Gaza". The 89-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sat in the audience. Trump commented on his presence. 

"See, we have 'em all," he said, pointing to Abbas, as he began listing the countries that helped bring the ceasefire to fruition in Gaza and will have a role in rebuilding it. 

It's unclear what role the Palestinian Authority, in its current form, will have in Gaza, given both Israeli and US rejection of its legitimacy and its deep unpopularity among Palestinians. Arab and Muslim nations, however, have pushed to give it a role as the only pre-established Palestinian governing entity. 

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Trump heaped praise on his host, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi - whom he kept referring to simply as "the general" - but not without reminding him that his sometimes unpopular strongman approach still makes him "fantastic" and that the Egyptian air force - which Trump found impressive - is made up of US-made jets.

"I know exactly how much you paid for them," Trump told Sisi during his formal remarks on stage. 

To Qatar, Trump extended his condolences to the emir on the deaths of three of his diplomats in a car crash in Egypt last week, and added that while Qatar can be criticised a lot, he thinks it does not receive enough credit. 

On Turkey, Trump expressed his gratitude to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he has a strong personal relationship.

"When they have a problem with you, they always call me to handle it, and usually I come through," he said. 

In thanking Iraq for coming on board, Trump only said it has "lots of oil, so much oil they don't know what to do with it". 

But it was Pakistan's prime minister that Trump brought to the microphone to "say what you told me the other day". 

Shehbaz Sharif publicly nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize next year.

"I genuinely feel he is the most genuine and most wonderful candidate... You are the man this world needed most at this point in time," Sharif said.