Israelis and Gazans celebrated a day of relief and high drama as all 20 hostages held by the Hamas terror group were handed to the Red Cross and returned to Israel, reuniting with families in scenes few believed possible only weeks earlier.

United States (US) President Donald Trump landed in Israel just after the handovers began, greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac.

En route, Trump had told reporters: “The war is over. The war is over. Ok. You understand that?” And that: “We have a lot of verbal guarantees, and I don’t think they’re going to want to disappoint me,” insisting the ceasefire would hold because “people are tired of it [the war].”

Addressing the Knesset [Israel’s parliament] later in the morning, Trump described the Gaza truce as: “the most challenging breakthrough, maybe ever,” declaring: “This long and difficult war has ended.”

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana praised Trump as: “a giant of Jewish history,” likening him to Cyrus the Great, and called him: “a colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history.”

Ohana also announced a campaign to nominate Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

Netanyahu, addressing the Knesset before Trump, stated: “You will be etched in the history of our people,” and called Trump: “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” citing the US recognition of Jerusalem and airstrikes on Iran.

Trump told the Knesset the peace deal had led to Gaza’s demilitarisation, the disarming of Hamas, and a fundamental shift in Israel’s security: “Israel has won all that it can by force of arms. You’ve won.”

Riding the momentum the peace deal has afforded him, Trump then floated the prospect of an Israel–Iran deal, suggesting: “We can get that deal done easy, but first we have to get Russia done.” He argued that Tehran was also tired of the fighting: “The last thing they want to do is start digging holes again in mountains that just got blown up. They want to survive, OK?”

Trump also appealed for clemency in Netanyahu’s corruption trial, asking Israeli President Isaac Herzog: “Why don’t you give Netanyahu a pardon? Who cares about cigars and champagne?” The remark drew a mix of murmurs and applause in the chamber. Taking aim at Netanyahu [the two men do not get on], Trump had earlier called Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid: “a very nice opposition leader,” before urging: “Now you can be a little bit nicer because you’re not at war anymore, Bibi.”

Trump’s declaration that the: “long and difficult war has ended” now gives way to the complex task of consolidating the ceasefire, repatriating the dead, and translating battlefield gains into a stable security and political order.

From Israel Trump departed to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt where he and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will host a summit to agree the final aspects of the Gaza peace plan and begin to sketch the framework for a broader Middle Eastern peace pact. That broader pact, on top of the Abraham Accords agreement secured during the first Trump administration, is seen by analysts as the most viable route to a lasting period of Middle Eastern stability. If the accords hold and the pact is secured the effect may be to re-wire the strategic alliances that determine control of the Middle East, possibly ushering in an era of peace and prosperity.