US President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will jointly preside over a multilateral summit on Monday, focusing on cementing the current Gaza ceasefire and establishing a framework for postwar governance and reconstruction.
The Egyptian presidency confirmed the high-level meeting will assemble leaders from more than twenty nations. The attendee list includes United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, along with the premiers of Italy and Spain, reports Reuters, AP-UNB and agencies.
Official participation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Hamas leadership remains unconfirmed. Convening as a tenuous US-brokered ceasefire holds, the summit aims to formalize a political pathway forward. The diplomatic initiative follows an Israeli military campaign that has left over 67,000 dead and caused catastrophic damage to infrastructure across the Palestinian territory.
Humanitarian catastrophe emerges during lull in fighting
The temporary halt in offensive operations has enabled initial assessments of the devastation and limited recovery efforts. Gaza’s government media office reports the launch of thousands of public service missions since the truce began. Civil defense teams in Gaza have executed over 850 search-and-rescue operations, extracting approximately 150 bodies from destroyed buildings since Friday.
Municipal authorities in Khan Younis estimate 85 percent of that city lies in ruins, with nearly 400,000 tonnes of debris requiring removal. Humanitarian agencies emphasize that recovery operations face critical shortages of equipment and fuel due to the ongoing Israeli blockade.
The World Food Programme indicates readiness to reactivate 145 food distribution centers, contingent upon Israel permitting expanded aid access through additional border crossings. Prisoner Swap Proceeds Amid Domestic Israeli Political Tensions The ceasefire agreement includes a major prisoner exchange scheduled for Monday, involving 20 living Israeli captives and the remains of 28 others held by Hamas.
In return, Israel will release about 250 Palestinian prisoners and approximately 1,700 Gaza residents detained without formal charges during the conflict.
The arrangement has generated significant political repercussions within Israel. At a large gathering in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, US envoy Steve Witkoff received vocal appreciation from families of captives, while mentions of Prime Minister Netanyahu were met with audible disapproval, reflecting public attribution of the deal’s success to American rather than Israeli leadership.
According to a Reuters report, the summit is expected to establish a joint Arab-international mechanism to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza and coordinate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
A key point of discussion will be the role of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in postwar Gaza, with the US and Egypt advocating for its return to administration, a proposal Israel has repeatedly rejected.
The Associated Press(AP), citing a senior US official, reported that the negotiations for the prisoner swap were particularly complex, involving a last-minute demand from Hamas for the release of a prominent Palestinian militant. This nearly derailed the agreement and highlighted the fragility of the current truce. The success of the ceasefire and the summit’s outcomes are seen as a critical test for the newly inaugurated US administration’s ability to mediate one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
