Trump, Sissi to chair Gaza summit in Egypt; Abbas to attend; Israel, Hamas not invited

Egypt will host an international summit in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to finalize an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza, an Egyptian presidential spokesperson said on Saturday.

The summit will be attended by more than 20 leaders, including US President Donald Trump, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Neither Israel nor Hamas was invited to the summit, sources said. trump said en route to Israel overnight Sunday-Monday that he did not know why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not be there, but noted that Egypt was in charge of invites.

Though initial reports said the Palestinian Authority would not be represented, a Palestinian official later confirmed to The Times of Israel that PA President Mahmoud Abbas would attend, despite Israel ruling out any postwar role for the PA in Gaza.

Cairo said the summit would aim “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability.”

According to Egypt, the confab is designed to finalize an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza and rally support for the second phase of Trump’s peace plan that looks to disarm Hamas and create a new governing body in the Strip.

A Trump administration official told The Times of Israel on Sunday that the event aims for the four guarantors of Trump’s plan — the US, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — to “agree to the very broad principles” of the current 20-point framework.

The focus of the event, according to the official, is to solidify the backing from guarantors of the deal — “not the parties” — noting that otherwise, representatives from Israel and Hamas would need to be present.

It is unclear how the summit itself can formally end the war. Israel has said it will not agree to end the war until it is satisfied that Hamas no longer poses a threat and has no part in the rule of Gaza. However, the solidifying of a US-coordinated bloc of nations opposed to any continuation of the war would likely make it more difficult for Israel to resume fighting.

Israel was not invited to the event, a separate source told The Times of Israel.

Hamas also will not attend, according to officials in the terror group.

The summit “could tee up a wider movement toward normalization” with Israel in the region, a shared goal of Israel and the Trump administration, the US official added.

News of the summit was first reported on Friday by Axios, which said Trump had organized the event and that invitations had been extended to leaders or foreign ministers from Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

The outlet reported that the US State Department issued official invitations to the leaders’ summit and has significantly expanded the list of invitees to include Spain, Japan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Hungary, India, El Salvador, Cyprus, Greece, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Canada.

Iran was also invited, according to one source cited by an Axios reporter on X, in an apparent signal underlining Trump’s stated desire to eventually build relations with the nation and even bring it into the Abraham Accords. Iranian media said it would not attend.

Several leaders have confirmed their attendance, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Representing international organizations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and European Council President Antonio Costa will also attend.

Hossam Badran, a Hamas political bureau member, told AFP in an interview that the group “will not be involved.”

Hamas “acted principally through… Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during previous talks on Gaza, he said.

The summit will take place after Trump visits Israel and Hamas’s release of the hostages.

The Sinai resort city was the location of the intensive, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas last week, where mediators were able to secure the first stage of a hostage release deal and ceasefire, marking a key step toward ending a two-year war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when some 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped.

With the start of the ceasefire on Friday, the remaining 48 hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive, were expected to be released within 72 hours — by Monday. Israel is set to release around 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange, including 250 terror convicts serving life sentences.

Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza, in accordance with the further phases of the ceasefire deal agreed to in principle last week.

Badran, the Hamas official who spoke with AFP, said the second phase of Trump’s plan, which stipulates the disarmament of the group, the establishment of a multinational force and technocratic government in Gaza, and a further Israeli withdrawal, “contains many complexities and difficulties.”

One Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disarming the terror group was “out of the question.”

Ahead of the summit in Egypt, Trump will arrive in Israel on Monday morning and address the Knesset before departing for Sharm el-Sheikh four hours later.

Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.