Ambassador Jorge Álvarez Fuentes discusses Trump's historic agreement for peace in Gaza.

President Donald Trump has reached a historic agreement for an apparent extended ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The signing of the agreement involved the US president himself and his Egyptian counterpart , Abdul Fatah El-Sisi, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan , and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
This agreement is the most important since the Abraham Accords , which established diplomatic relations between two Gulf nations, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, and the State of Israel in September 2020.
The ceasefire agreement, which was signed without the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian officials, or Hamas militants, leaves a series of questions about the next steps to be taken if the first stage of the fragile agreement is actually fulfilled. This consists of the release of the live hostages, which was finalized on Monday, October 13, and the return of the bodies of the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.
For Ambassador Jorge Álvarez Fuentes, who led Mexico 's diplomatic representation in Egypt from 2013 to 2016, the implementation of the first phase of Trump 's peace plan is significant because it brought both Israel and Hamas together on terms to temporarily halt more than two years of war, which has left an estimated 65,000 people dead in the Gaza Strip alone.
He emphasized that the agreement was reached "in a timely manner, of course, not without some of the complexities that this entails, because on the one hand, only 20 hostages survived, and that's who surrendered, and of the rest, only the remains of four of them have been returned."
The columnist for this publishing house also recalled that one of the main questions being raised is where the displaced Palestinians and those released from Israeli prisons will reside.
He noted that the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble, and other freed prisoners, mainly those serving life sentences, have been deported to third countries, complicating the process of reintegration into Palestinian society, as they lack housing and basic services.
Ambassador Jorge Álvarez states that the war in Gaza has come to an end, " at least in this first phase, but the conflict has not. The conflict persists, and in that sense, it is very important to look at the other components of the agreement."
Regarding the components of the agreement, he recalled that it is important to conduct a concrete analysis of them, as their proper implementation will facilitate the initiation of the subsequent phases of the peace plan; otherwise, the attacks could resume.
Of this, he pointed out that the Israeli army's partial withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the massive influx of humanitarian aid, " but above all, the establishment of a process that leads to Hamas ceasing to be the authority and laying down its weapons in Gaza, but also addressing the conflict that has escalated in the West Bank," are critical points.
If these points are met, "we are indeed not at the end of a process, we are at the beginning of a process, and that peace process would inevitably lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Along the same lines, he maintained that there is a lot of optimism and skepticism, but he made it clear that the only country that can exert pressure and coercion in the Middle East is the United States.
During the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, President El-Sisi declared that Donald Trump 's proposal represents "the last chance" for peace in the region and reiterated his call for a two-state solution, affirming that the Palestinians have the right to a sovereign nation.
El-Sisi 's office had announced that the summit aimed to end the war in Gaza and "open a new page of regional peace and stability" , in line with the proposal from Washington DC.
Addressing these underlying issues posed a challenge at the summit, mainly due to the absence of leaders from Israel and the Hamas factions.
Álvarez Fuentes agreed with the Egyptian president's words, emphasizing that "it clearly describes what we see today in the region. After two years, this has not been a war limited to the Gaza Strip, the occupied Palestinian territories, but rather a war that has spread to other fronts, to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. So, when it is pointed out that this is the last chance, I believe it emphasizes that the time has come to change the course of current history in the Middle East."
Therefore, he recalled that "no one doubts that Israel is the most powerful country in the region, with the most powerful army, with a cutting-edge, largely digital economy, but at the same time there are some countries that still have a very important role to play in this changing era," such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Bahrain, which "had already established or normalized relations with Israel."
Regarding the Palestinian Authority, Álvarez Fuentes recalled that it was born from another effort, the Oslo Accords , which consisted of a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) , which ended in failure, so he acknowledged that a change of leadership, to a younger one, is evident.
Pressure to end the Gaza genocide, which is not recognized by Israeli and US authorities, was supported days before the 80th United Nations General Assembly by nations historically allied with Tel Aviv.
The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, and Portugal, primarily, spearheaded the recognition of Palestine as a state, actions that infuriated Tel Aviv and Washington but nevertheless served as pressure for the peace agreement in early October.
Jorge Álvarez Fuentes explained that "we mustn't delude ourselves so as not to end up being deluded. Rather, this is the moment when, at the level of the millions of people around the world who have spoken out against the genocide in Gaza and who support the aspirations of the Palestinians' right to a state that coexists peacefully with the State of Israel, they are fulfilled."
He also described it as “a trap to label as anti-Semitic anyone who is not in tune with Israel’s actions, which are clearly genocide,” and acknowledged that while President Trump’s real interest in this agreement is to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it partially shows that the United States “is back in that mediating role,” despite the fact that the country is embroiled in an internal war against migrants, as well as a global war with tariffs.
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