United States ruler Donald Trump has declared the Gaza war “over.” He made the comments to reporters shortly after boarding Air Force One on Sunday for a flight to Israel to oversee the hostage releases.
”The war is over. Okay? You understand that?” Trump said when asked if he was confident that the conflict between Israel and Hamas was finished. “Everybody’s very excited about this moment in time. This is a very special event…Everybody’s cheering at one time. That’s never happened before,” he told reporters.
According to a report by RT, the ceasefire deal unveiled by Trump in late September stipulates that all 48 remaining Israeli hostages, both dead and alive, will be recovered from the enclave.
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The Israeli government is expected to receive the remaining living hostages around 8 am Monday morning. Once those hostages have been secured, the bodies of the deceased will be delivered at a later time. Israel has, in turn, agreed to free 250 Palestinians currently serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans who have been detained since 2023.
Trump will be accompanied on his visit to the region by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Secretary of Defense (Secretary of War) Pete Hegseth, along with a host of other high-ranking administration officials.
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Israel has, in turn, agreed to free 250 Palestinians currently serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans who have been detained since the onslaught of the war in 2023.
During his visit to Israel, Trump is expected to address the country’s parliament as well as meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the families of the hostages taken on October 7, 2023.
Later, leaders from more than 20 countries will join the U.S. president in Egypt for a summit to decide Gaza’s future. Interestingly, representatives of Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas will not be in attendance, making it unclear if this will result in a peace deal or not.
A few days ago, Israel stalled the ceasefire agreement process to ratify the deal. It didn’t want to commit to certain concessions. It’s unclear, at the time of this writing, whether or not this particular issue with the agreement has been resolved.
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