 "President Donald Trump will get his routine yearly health check up today. File image/AP")
After Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, the American leader said on Thursday that he is planning to travel to Egypt to attend the formal signing of the ceasefire agreement between the warring parties.
“I’m going to try and make a trip over. We’re going to try and get over there, and we’re working on the timing, the exact timing,” Trump said during his opening remarks at his White House Cabinet meeting. “We’re going to go to Egypt, where we’ll have a signing, an additional signing, and we’ve already had a signing," he added.
Trump emphasised that the release of hostages from Gaza is a complicated process, but will be done by Monday or Tuesday. The American president said that there will be the remains of around 28 hostages which are to be brought back. However, he did not reveal any more details or timings of the exchange.
“Actually, the bodies are a bigger problem, because some of the bodies are going to be a little bit hard to find,” Trump said. “The situation with the bodies, you know, they say 20, 28, some are going to be a little bit hard to find. But we’re going to do the best we can.”
While speaking on the devastation, the American leader emphasised that around 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, calling it a “big retribution” by Israel. “From the Hamas standpoint, they probably lost 70,000 people. That’s big retribution,” he said.
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On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi invited Trump to attend the signing ceremony. “It would be truly wonderful if, should an agreement be reached, you could attend its signing,” Sisi had said shortly after Trump announced that both Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal.
On Thursday, the Egyptian leader met with Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Cairo. In a statement after the meeting, the president’s office welcomed the ceasefire agreement, adding that he is eager to celebrate the signing of the deal soon. The statement also said that ending the war is in the “wills of all countries.”
The Egyptian president reiterated that his invitation to Trump to visit Egypt was to “witness the signing of this historic agreement in a ceremony befitting the occasion.”