Trump arrives in Tel Aviv as Hamas-Israel prisoner swap begins

In a visit described as “pivotal,” U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday morning to begin a short regional tour, coinciding with the start of the first phase of a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner-exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted Trump at Ben Gurion Airport, before the president went on to deliver a speech to the Knesset, amid international anticipation over the future of the Palestinian issue and the fate of the Gaza Strip after the war.

The visit precedes Trump’s trip to the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, where an international conference of leaders and heads of state will convene to formally sign an agreement to end the war in Gaza.

The U.S. delegation accompanying the president included his adviser Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his daughter Ivanka Trump, who arrived in Tel Aviv several hours earlier.

During his flight, Trump followed the prisoner-exchange operation from Air Force One. Hamas began handing over the first batch of 20 live Israeli captives in the morning, in return for the release of roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli army said it had received seven captives via the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the remainder to be handed over at 10 a.m. from the southern Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian sources, 1,966 Palestinian prisoners were moved from Israeli prisons onto buses in preparation for their release, including 250 with long sentences and 1,716 prisoners of war, in one of the largest exchange operations in years.