President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a deal between Israel and Hamas to end the conflict in Gaza is “very close” and suggested that he may travel to the region this weekend.
“Our final negotiation, as you know, is with Hamas. And it seems to be going well,” Trump said during a White House roundtable.
“I may go there some time toward the end of the week,” he said, noting that travel plans were still in flux and that he could depart late Saturday or early Sunday. “We’ll see, but there’s a very good chance that negotiations are going along very well.”
The comments came shortly after Trump’s lead negotiators, special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, wrapped up their first day of talks in Egypt with the two parties and other Arab partners.
The talks in the Red Sea town of Sharm El-Sheikh got underway on Monday after Hamas responded largely positively to the 20-point Gaza peace plan Trump unveiled last week after getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to it during a meeting at the White House.
If the plan is adopted, it would mean an exchange of hostages and prisoners between Israel and Hamas and the end of a two-year conflict in Gaza sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel..
Under the plan, the final details of which were still being worked out, Hamas would disarm and relinquish control of Gaza, which would be governed in the short term by an international trusteeship overseen by the U.S. and Arab allies.