President Trump left Washington on Sunday afternoon, heading to Israel to meet with hostage families on Monday and then address the Knesset. He is then scheduled to travel to Egypt, where he and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will lead a summit to discuss the peace process in Gaza with more than 20 countries.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli government, Shosh Bedrosian, told reporters in Tel Aviv on Sunday that the hostages were expected to be released at one time to the Red Cross early Monday morning local time. They will be transferred initially to the Re’im military base in southern Israel, where they will reunite with their families, she said.
According to Vice President JD Vance, Mr. Trump plans to “welcome them in person.”
Mr. Vance, speaking on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures,” also raised doubts about whether the bodies of all the dead hostages would be returned. “I think the reality is that some of the hostages we may never get back,” he said, referring to their remains, “but I do think most of them, with some effort, we’ll be able to give them to their families so they at least have some closure.”
The summit meeting in Egypt will be held at Sharm el-Sheikh, a Red Sea resort, where mediators recently hammered out a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas to free Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a partial pullback of Israeli forces.
The cease-fire, which took effect on Friday morning, is the first phase of an agreement brokered by the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to end the two-year war, with the next phases still to be negotiated. Mr. Trump put pressure on both sides to break the deadlock.
Several Arab nations who support Mr. Trump’s peace plan will attend the summit, along with the U.N. secretary-general and the heads of state from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was invited to participate, according to Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official, and was expected to attend. It was not immediately clear whether any Israeli representatives would participate.
“The summit aims to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, and usher in a new phase of regional security and stability,” the Egyptian president’s office said in its announcement, adding the meeting “comes in light of U.S. President Trump’s vision for achieving peace in the region.”
For Mr. Trump, the meeting appeared to be part of a victory lap, even though it still remains unclear if the cease-fire will hold and become permanent after the hostages are exchanged for 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Two major sticking points in negotiations — whether Hamas will disarm and agree to be excluded from any future government in Gaza — are still unresolved.
The president is likely to be praised as a peacemaker in any case. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, for instance, will pay “particular tribute” to Mr. Trump, his office said in a statement.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
James C. McKinley Jr. is a Times editor in New York who covers breaking news.
Andrea Kannapell leads the international team that produces the Morning, Evening and Weekend Briefings.
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