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US President Donald Trump affirmed Monday that the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Agreement has ended the war in the Gaza Strip, and that this heralds the beginning of a strong Middle East living in peace.He extended thanks to His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and to the Arab and Muslim nations that assisted in reaching the deal.Speaking at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, President Trump thanked Arab and Muslim states for making the breakthrough possible. He offered particular thanks for His Highness the Amir, describing him as "an exceptional man who is greatly respected." Trump declared that the nations had collectively achieved peace in the Middle East, something widely considered impossible. He called the signed document "historic" and "the greatest deal ever," confirming that the fighting in Gaza was finished and that aid deliveries had started. He promised to lead the Middle East toward a better future.The US President assured the attendees that a Third World War would be avoided in the Middle East.While acknowledging the difficulty of the initial steps toward peace, he stated that the momentum was now moving toward achieving lasting peace in the region and that this was a unique opportunity. He urged all parties to maintain the collaborative spirit to ensure the continuation of this historic success.Trump reiterated the historical significance of the achievement, calling for a demilitarised Gaza and a safe Middle East. He also confirmed an agreement on the necessity of supporting the reconstruction of Gaza.Acknowledging the challenges ahead, the president suggested that the rebuilding of Gaza might be the most difficult phase. He noted that wealthy nations had already informed him of their willingness to assist in the reconstruction efforts. Furthermore, he mentioned that many wish to join the "Peace Council on Gaza," which may require expansion.Finally, President Trump extended his condolences to Qatar for the recent tragic incident in Sharm el- Sheikh that resulted in the deaths of several Amiri Diwan employees.His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani arrived earlier Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to head Qatar's delegation participating in the summit for peace.His Highness the Amir was welcomed upon arrival at Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport by Egyptian Minister of Culture Dr. Ahmed Fouad Hano, and Qatar's Ambassador to Egypt Tariq bin Ali al-Ansari.His Highness is accompanied by HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani and an official delegation.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani participated in the signing ceremony of the agreement ending the war in Gaza, alongside President of the Arab Republic of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, President of the President of the United States of America Donald Trump.The ceremony took place in the presence of Their Majesties, Highnesses, and Excellencies heads of states, governments, and delegations taking part in the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit, held at the Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani and HE Chief of the Amiri Diwan Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Khulaifi attended the signing ceremony, alongside a lineup of members of the official delegation accompanying His Highness the Amir, members of the accompanying official delegations, representatives of regional and international organizations, and guests of the summit.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that peace is happening now in the Middle East, which is going through a very remarkable period right now."We will see a lot of progress in the Middle East", Trump said during a joint meeting with his Egyptian counterpart ahead of the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit, explaining that Gaza needs the efforts of all to remove the rubble.He also noted that the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit is witnessing important representation in this regard, praising Egypt's role in ceasefire negotiations in Gaza.For his part, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi commended the efforts of his US counterpart in stopping the war in Gaza, describing the Gaza ceasefire agreement as a tremendous achievement.US President is the only one capable of ending the war and achieving peace in our region, El-Sisi added, before pointing out that Egypt is working to stabilize the ceasefire as quickly as possible and urgently deliver humanitarian aid.He also said that coordination with the United States continues, expressing his country's readiness to take all necessary measures to ensure the goals of peace and stability in the Middle East are achieved.

The United States, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey signed a declaration on Monday as the guarantors of a Gaza deal aimed at ending two years of war."The document is going to spell out rules and regulations and lots of other things," Trump said before signing, repeating twice that "it's going to hold up".

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza Monday under a ceasefire deal and Israel sent home busloads of Palestinian detainees, as US President Donald Trump told Israel's parliament that peace had arrived in the Middle East. The Israeli military said it had received all 20 hostages confirmed to be alive, after their transfer from Gaza by the Red Cross. The announcement prompted cheering, hugging and weeping among thousands waiting at "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv. In Gaza, thousands of relatives, many weeping with joy, gathered at a hospital where buses brought home some of the nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be freed by Israel as part of the accord. "The skies are calm, the guns are silent, the sirens are still and the sun rises on a Holy Land that is finally at peace," Trump told the Knesset, Israel's parliament, saying a "long nightmare" for both Israelis and Palestinians was over. He later left for a summit in Egypt intended to cement the truce. The US, along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye, mediated what has been described as a first phase agreement between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas and prisoners and detainees by Israel. Trump arrived in the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about an hour before sundown for the gathering of more than 20 world leaders, which he was to chair alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. At the opening of the summit, Trump signed a document on the ceasefire deal with Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye. The ceasefire and partial Israeli withdrawal agreed last week halted one of Israel's biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City that was killing scores of people per day. Since then, huge numbers of Palestinians have been able to return to the ruins of homes in the Gaza Strip, swathes of which were reduced to a wasteland by Israeli bombardment that killed 68,000 people. Among the immediate issues still to be resolved: recovering the remains of another 26 Israeli hostages believed to have died and two whose fates are unknown. Hamas says recovering the bodies could take time as not all burial sites are known. It handed over four bodies Monday. Aid supplies must be rushed into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people face famine. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher underlined the need to "get shelter and fuel to people who desperately need it and to massively scale up the food and medicine and other supplies going in". Beyond that, crucial issues have yet to be resolved, including how to govern and police Gaza, and the ultimate future of Hamas, which still rejects Israel's demands to disarm. Video footage captured emotional scenes of Israeli families receiving phone messages from their loved ones as they were being released, their faces lighting up with disbelief and hope after months of anguish. Palestinians meanwhile rushed to embrace prisoners freed by Israel. Several thousand gathered inside and around Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, some waving Palestinian flags, others holding photos of their relatives. "I am happy for our sons who are being freed, but we are still in pain for all those who have been killed by the occupation, and all the destruction that happened to our Gaza," a Gaza woman, Um Ahmed, told Reuters in a tearful voice message. Freed prisoners arrived in buses, some of them posing from the windows, flashing V-for-Victory signs. Israel was due to release 1,700 detainees it captured in Gaza, as well as 250 prisoners from its jails convicted or suspected of security offences. Samer Halabeya, a doctor freed from jail where he was serving a sentence for planning an attack that wounded an Israeli officer, stood by his weeping mother in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. "We hope that everyone gets freed," he said.

The United States and Egypt's top diplomats reviewed preparations for a summit in Sharm El-Sheikh that will bring the two countries' presidents together with other leaders to discuss implementing the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal, likely Monday.US President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are expected to lead the summit, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday.Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday discussed arrangements for the gathering, including for "international participation in the Sharm El-Sheikh summit, as well as preparations for the implementation of the first phase of the (ceasefire) deal".Alongside the US and Qatar, Egypt has played a key role in mediating talks that eventually led to the latest ceasefire deal.French President Emmanuel Macron is set to travel to Egypt on Monday to back the deal, the Elysee Palace said, while Spain's Pedro Sanchez and Italy's Giorgia Meloni are also expected to attend.Earlier Trump had said he would meet a "lot of leaders" in Egypt on Monday to discuss the future of devastated Gaza.Israel has agreed to the truce plan put forward by Trump, and on Friday pulled troops back from several areas of Gaza, setting the clock in motion for hostages held by Hamas to be released within 72 hours.The head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Saturday he visited Gaza to discuss post-conflict stabilization and insisted no US troops will be deployed to the Palestinian territory.Admiral Brad Cooper wrote on X that he just returned from a trip to Gaza to discuss creation of a CENTCOM-led "civil-military coordination center" which will "support conflict stabilization."Meanwhile, Israel has begun transferring prisoners to two jails ahead of their release as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.Under the truce deal Israel is supposed to release 250 prisoners, including some serving life sentences. In exchange, Hamas has until Monday to hand over its 48 remaining Israeli hostages -- living and dead.

Delegations from Israel and Hamas began indirect negotiations in Egypt on Monday that the US hopes will bring a halt to the war in Gaza, facing contentious issues such as demands that Israel pull out of the enclave and Hamas to disarm.Israel and Palestinian resistance movement Hamas have both endorsed the overall principles behind President Donald Trump's plan, under which fighting would cease, hostages go free and aid pour into Gaza, the closest they have come to an end to fighting.The plan also has the backing of Arab and Western states. Trump has called for negotiations to take place swiftly towards a final deal, in what Washington hails as the closest the sides have yet come to ending the fighting.Under the proposal, administration of the territory would be taken up by a technocratic body overseen by a transitional authority headed by Trump himself."I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST," Trump said in a social media post.But both sides are seeking clarifications of crucial details, including over issues that have wrecked all previous attempts to end the war and could defy any quick resolution.Trump has told Israel to suspend its bombing of Gaza for the talks. Gaza residents said Israel had scaled back its offensive substantially, although it had not halted it altogether.Egyptian state TV reported that the talks had begun at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.Egyptian sources said Hamas was seeking clarification of several details, including guarantees that Israel would follow through with promises to withdraw its troops from Gaza once the militants give up their leverage by freeing their hostages.Inside Israel there is clamour for an end to the war to bring home hostages, although right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet oppose any halt to fighting.Though Trump says he wants a deal quickly, an official briefed on the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the round of talks would require at least a few days.An official involved in ceasefire planning and a Palestinian source said Trump's deadline to send all hostages back within 72 hours could be impossible to meet in the case of bodies of dead hostages, some of which would need to be located and recovered from burial sites scattered across the battlefield.A Palestinian official close to the talks was sceptical about prospects of a breakthrough given deep mutual mistrust, saying Hamas and other Palestinian factions were worried that Israel might ditch negotiations once it recovered the hostages.The Israeli delegation includes officials from spy agencies Mossad and Shin Bet, Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk and hostages coordinator Gal Hirsch. Israel's chief negotiator, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, was expected to join later this week, pending developments in the negotiations, according to three Israeli officials.Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are also expected in Egypt.The Hamas delegation is led by the group's exiled Gaza leader, Khalil al-Hayya, who survived an Israeli airstrike that killed his son in Doha, the Qatari capital, a month ago.Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egypt's state intelligence, said "Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working with both sides to establish a mechanism" for the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.Behind closed doors and under tight security, negotiators will speak through mediators shuttling back and forth.According to the Palestinian source, the initial hostage-prisoner exchange will "require several days, depending on field conditions related to Israeli withdrawals, the cessation of bombardment and the suspension of all types of air operations".Negotiations will look to "determine the date of a temporary truce", a Hamas official said, as well as create conditions for a first phase of the plan, in which 47 hostages held in Gaza are to be released in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.Mirjana Spoljaric, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has coordinated previous exchanges, said its teams were standing at the ready "to help bring hostages and detainees back to their families".On Monday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi praised Trump's plan saying it offered "the right path to lasting peace and stability".

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that progress had been made on many issues, including trade and the approval of a TikTok deal with China.In a post on the Truth Social platform, Trump said that he had a "very good" phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. He said: "We appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC."Trump also indicated that he will visit China "early next year" and that the Chinese president will visit the US "at a later date."For his part, the Chinese president said that his country and the US can achieve mutual success, but he stressed that the US side must avoid unilateral trade restrictions. He called on the US to provide an open, fair, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies.He added that the Chinese government respects the will of companies and is pleased to see them conduct trade negotiations in accordance with market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and a balance of interests.