Donald Trump to travel to Israel as country anxiously awaits hostage releases

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Donald Trump was set to leave Washington for Israel on Sunday as the country anxiously awaited the release of hostages held by Hamas as part of a peace deal backed by the US president to end the two-year conflict in Gaza.

Trump is due to arrive in Israel on Monday to meet hostage families and address the Knesset as part of a lightning trip to the Middle East during which he will also attend a “peace summit” in Egypt with 20 world leaders.

The US president’s visit comes as Hamas is due to hand over the 20 living hostages it holds in Gaza by noon local time on Monday in exchange for the release of almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

On Sunday afternoon, US vice-president JD Vance fuelled speculation that the release of the hostages — which will also include the bodies of at least some of the 28 who have died — could be brought forward, telling NBC News it “really should be any moment now”.

But Gal Hirsch, the Israeli brigadier heading the Hostages and Missing Persons Directorate in the prime minister’s office, said later that the government still expected the hostages to be returned from Monday morning at dawn.

“From around 6am-7am it will become realistic,” Hirsh said, adding that this was the timing the Red Cross and Israeli forces were preparing for, with the caveat that it could still happen sooner.

Hirsh also said that after the living hostages were returned, the Red Cross would return to Gaza to retrieve the bodies of those who had died. “A number of deceased hostages are expected to return to our hands tomorrow, we’re not saying a number,” he said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “prepared and ready to immediately receive all of our hostages”.

The Palestinian prisoners will be released after the hostages have left Gaza, an Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday.

The prospect of an end to the war has sparked an outpouring of emotion in both Israel and Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis chanted “Thank you Trump!” when they rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

There were also celebrations in Gaza, where displaced families have begun to return to their shattered homes.

But while both Israel and Hamas have agreed to the exchange, and a fragile ceasefire has held in Gaza since Friday, they have yet to agree to the second phase of Trump’s peace plan.

This calls for Hamas’s disarmament, a broader withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the deployment of an international stabilisation force in the Palestinian enclave.

A spokesperson for the Egyptian presidency said on Saturday that the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh aimed to “end the war in the Gaza Strip, strengthen peace and stability efforts in the Middle East, and open a new page in regional security and stability”.

Among the leaders who have confirmed they will attend the summit, which will be co-chaired by Trump and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, are German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

However, neither Israel nor Hamas will take part, and diplomats expect that securing their agreement on the second phase of Trump’s plan will be far more complicated than for the first.

Netanyahu’s government has made no pledge to fully withdraw its troops from Gaza, nor does it talk of ending the war, and his far-right coalition partners have repeatedly threatened to topple his administration if the war ends without Hamas’s destruction.

Defence minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that he had ordered Israeli forces to prepare for blowing up Hamas’s remaining tunnel network in Gaza.

Hamas has yet to agree to disarm, and in a display of force has begun reasserting its power in parts of Gaza from which Israel has withdrawn since the ceasefire took effect on Friday, setting up checkpoints and engaging in gun battles with rival groups in the enclave.

Nonetheless, diplomats regard the latest push as the best chance so far of finally ending the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7 2023 attack on Israel during which Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took a further 250 hostage.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 67,600 people, according to Palestinian officials, reduced much of Gaza to uninhabitable rubble, and has drawn accusations — which Israel denies — that it has committed genocide in the Palestinian enclave.