French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that France will have a “very special role” in governing the Gaza Strip in the future “alongside the Palestinian Authority.”

Upon his arrival in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday to participate in a summit chaired by the Egyptian and American presidents, Macron said, “We will play a very special role alongside the Palestinian Authority, and we will ensure that it has its role, but also that it carries out the (necessary) reforms for the day after” the end of the war in Gaza.

Macron also confirmed the participation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Sharm El-Sheikh summit, describing it as “a very good sign… and recognition of the Palestinian Authority’s role as a legitimate institution.”

This comes as Hamas handed over twenty living prisoners who were still held in the Gaza Strip, while U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Israel to deliver a speech at the Knesset before the Gaza-focused Sharm El-Sheikh summit.

In the first phase of the U.S. president’s ceasefire plan in Gaza, the return of prisoners to Israel coincides with Tel Aviv releasing 250 Palestinian “security” detainees and 1,700 others arrested in Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023.

The French president welcomed Hamas’s start of releasing Israeli living prisoners, saying, “Peace has become possible for Israel, Gaza, and the region.”

The governance of the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the ongoing two-year war, will be one of the main topics at the Sharm El-Sheikh summit. During the summit, the countries that mediated the ceasefire will sign a document to ensure its implementation, according to sources cited by the French news agency. The signatories will be the guarantor parties: the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and possibly Turkey.

Under Trump’s plan, Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from Gaza cities, to be replaced by a multinational force including troops from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the UAE, coordinated by a command center under U.S. supervision in Israel. Hamas will be excluded from governing the strip and disarmed.

The government will be entrusted, according to the U.S. plan, to a “Palestinian technocratic and non-political committee” placed “under the supervision and control of a new international transitional authority” headed by Trump.