Hostages, prisoners exchanged as Trump takes Gaza victory lap

Hamas released 20 hostages and Israel freed 2,000 prisoners in return on Monday, hours before US President Donald Trump declared that the war in Gaza was over in an address to the Israeli parliament, but there is still uncertainty over the future of the Palestinian enclave.

- Agencies

Later, Trump and over 20 other world leaders, including India’s minister of state for external affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh, met in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for a peace summit, although Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas officials did not attend the meeting co-hosted by the African nation’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose country is key to the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire. At the conference, Trump hailed a “tremendous day for the Middle East” as the leaders signed a declaration to cement the Gaza ceasefire.

But while questions remain about the end of the war, both Israelis and Palestinians celebrated the return of hostages and the release of prisoners, many taken during the attack on October 7, 2023, and in the days that followed.

In his rambling 64-minute long speech at the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, Trump declared an end to the two-year-long war in Gaza, called for lasting peace in the region, underscored that the US would be involved in efforts to rebuild the battered enclave, reiterated his country's support for Israel and urged the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, even as he asked the prime minister to "be nicer".

"After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today 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, a land and a region that will live," he said.