Rama Krishna Sangem
US President Donald Trump evoked the loudest applause from all members of Israeli Knesset October 13, Monday afternoon, for ending the ongoing war with Hamas. Trump exceed the time he planned while addressing the Israeli parliament as a mark of celebrating his brokered peace between Israel and Hamas..
Trump told cheering Israeli lawmakers that “this is the historic dawn of a new Middle East”, after helping to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
During the first such address by a US president since 2008, Trump said was a “day of profound joy” after “two harrowing years”. Trump’s address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, comes on the day that the last 20 living hostages held in the Palestinian enclave were released by Hamas.
Israel is releasing 250 Palestinian prisoners and more than 1,700 other Palestinians detained during the two-year military operations in Gaza.
During a whirlwind trip to the region, Trump is also expected to attend a peace summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other world leaders.
Middle-East to be magnificent soon
After hearing politicians’ chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump” in the Knesset, the American president said the occasion would represent “not only the end of a war” but also the possibility of a new age for “what will soon be a magnificent region”. Trump’s suggestion that the region was on the dawn of a new era echoed the words he used when Israel signed landmark deals with several Arab states during his first presidency.
Trump was introduced to parliament by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who saluted his counterpart’s various acts of solidarity with Israel. Trump was the “greatest friend” Israel had ever had in the White House, Netanyahu said. “Everything changed” in the American attitude to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza when Trump was re-elected as US president last year, Netanyahu added.
The Israeli prime minister thanked Trump for his “unremitting help” in securing the return of the remaining hostages – part of a group of 251 people seized during the 7 October 2023 attacks in southern Israel by Hamas.
Trump ended his more than an hour long speech with God Bless America, God Bless Middle-East!
