More than 20 world leaders met in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for a summit to end the war in Gaza on Monday, but one of the most remarkable public exchanges there was the greeting between President Trump and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Abbas shook hands warmly and at length, chatting intensely all the while. As the two men posed for the camera at the end of their hushed chat, Mr. Trump took Mr. Abbas’s hand, patting it twice as the Palestinian leader smiled. Mr. Trump gave a thumbs-up sign and presented his own big smile.
It was not the first time that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Trump had shaken hands, and their conversation could not be heard. But their body language suggested that they had reached some kind of rapprochement in what has at times been a tense and strained relationship.
Just recently, Mr. Abbas was denied a U.S. visa, preventing him from traveling to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. That meant he had to address the assembly by video link, and he missed a conference on Palestinian statehood hosted by France and Saudi Arabia — and about a dozen nations’ recognition of the state of Palestine.
The Trump administration cited national security concerns in denying Mr. Abbas and his delegation visas. The State Department, in its announcement of the denials, said it acted on the ground that the Palestinian Authority was “undermining the prospects for peace.” It accused the group of waging “international lawfare campaigns” by filing cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice and of trying to bypass negotiations for peace with “efforts to secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state.”
Those tensions were not in evidence in the exchange between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Trump on Monday, or in the American president’s address to leaders at the summit in Egypt. As Mr. Trump spoke at Sharm el-Sheikh, he pointed to Mr. Abbas and noted his presence at the summit, drawing a round of applause from the audience. “It’s good to have you,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Abbas has made a concerted effort to repair his relationship with Mr. Trump, which frayed during the U.S. president’s first term in the White House.
In that period, Mr. Trump advanced policies that infuriated the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas forced out of Gaza in 2007 but still administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut off aid to the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees, presented a peace plan that favored Israel and helped forge agreements between Israel and Arab states, known as the Abraham Accords, that sidestepped Palestinian ambitions to establish an independent state.
Mr. Abbas barred senior Palestinian officials from contact with the first Trump administration. But he took steps to sway Mr. Trump in the run-up to his re-election last year.
Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman and the father-in-law of Mr. Trump’s daughter Tiffany Trump, had served as an unofficial emissary of the 2024 Trump campaign to Arab American voters. Mr. Boulos helped Mr. Abbas communicate with Mr. Trump in the months before the election, as did Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American Trump backer, according to people involved in those contacts.
Mr. Boulos and Mr. Bahbah said they helped facilitate the delivery of a letter from Mr. Abbas to Mr. Trump in July, in which the Palestinian leader condemned an assassination attempt against Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump posted the letter on his social media platform. In the letter, Mr. Abbas expressed “grave concern” about the assassination attempt, condemned “acts of violence” and called for differences to be resolved through communication.
Mr. Trump replied on the posted letter itself, in his distinctive handwriting with a thick black Sharpie marker, addressing Mr. Abbas by his first name, saying the letter was “so nice” and declaring that “everything will be good.”
A 20-point peace plan to end the conflict in Gaza that Mr. Trump unveiled last month calls on the Palestinian Authority, which has been accused of corruption, to undergo a period of reform before it can play a role in governing the enclave.
The plan does not guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state. It says only that as the rebuilding of Gaza advances and reforms to the Palestinian Authority are carried out, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”
Adam Rasgon, Charles Homans and Erika Solomon contributed reporting.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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