Within the days following Israel’s September 9 missile strike concentrating on Hamas’s leaders in Doha, because the restricted nature of the outcomes started to crystallize, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu selected to double down on the choice, which had galvanized your entire area in opposition to him like by no means earlier than.
“It didn’t fail, as a result of it had one central message, and we thought of it earlier than we launched it, and that’s, you’ll be able to conceal, you’ll be able to run, however we’ll get you,” the premier asserted, whereas standing alongside US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A number of weeks later, although, Netanyahu was within the Oval Workplace, holding a cellphone handed to him by US President Donald Trump and studying a scripted apology to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani, who was on the opposite line.
“It was the type of factor that mature individuals do. That acquired us some leverage,” a senior US official mentioned, as he reviewed how the Trump administration managed to dealer an settlement ending the Gaza warfare after two years.
The Doha strike initially noticed a deterioration in circumstances for an settlement, with some hostage households who traveled to satisfy with Trump officers in Washington leaving city satisfied that the administration was drifting away from their problem.
The strike “brought on a number of angst throughout the Arab world,” mentioned the senior US official concerned within the negotiations throughout a briefing with reporters on Thursday. “There was a way that it shouldn’t occur. There was a way that if it did occur, it may occur to different international locations.”
US President Donald Trump speaks throughout a cupboard assembly on the White Home, October 9, 2025, in Washington, DC, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, proper, look on. (AP/Evan Vucci)
However it was throughout that interval of doubt that US particular envoy Steve Witkoff and his efficient predecessor throughout Trump’s first time period, Jared Kushner, started crafting a plan aimed toward ending the warfare in Gaza and rebuilding belief between Israel and its Center Jap neighbors.
As a result of whereas Witkoff and Kushner acknowledged a mounting, regional-wide anger with Israel, additionally they “started to detect that Hamas had had sufficient.”
“They fought laborious. However this was a battle that was [affecting] each household in Gaza… Gazans don’t simply blame Israel for this battle. They, largely, have been blaming Hamas for it. We started to sense that and switch that into leverage,” the senior US official mentioned.
Not your ‘middle-of-the-road’ president
Decided to craft a plan that leveraged the disaster, Witkoff and Kushner borrowed rules and concepts from earlier hostage deal proposals together with present frameworks for ending the warfare, whereas consulting intently with Al Thani, who was totally on board with the trouble following Netanyahu’s apology, the senior US official mentioned.
The ensuing doc was then introduced on the sidelines of the UN Common Meeting by Trump to US allied international locations within the Arab and Muslim world, whose assist can be wanted within the post-war stabilization and administration of Gaza.
The plan was tailored to take their suggestions under consideration, and an identical revision course of unfolded after the doc was shared with Netanyahu over the past weekend of September.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) depart the State Eating Room of the White Home after a press convention in Washington, DC on September 29, 2025 at which Trump set out a plan to finish the warfare in Gaza. (Jim Watson / AFP)
The 20-point proposal was then unveiled by the White Home as Trump stood beside Netanyahu, who moments prior had agreed not solely to apologize to Qatar however to again a plan that might properly result in the collapse of his authorities, because it envisions an instantaneous finish to the warfare, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the creation of a possible pathway to a Palestinian state.
Explaining why the US was capable of get Netanyahu on board with ending the warfare — one thing the Biden administration was unable to do, regardless of such a end result arguably being extra desired by Democrat voters, a senior Trump aide who was additionally on the Thursday briefing touted his boss’s “confirmed method” that has seen him reject the concept that the president must be a “center of the roader.”
Trump has “stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel one hundred pc. And due to that, he’s been capable of assist information them in the suitable route,” the aide mentioned. “Israel has a number of belief in President Trump that he’s not going to ask [it] to do something that may compromise [its] safety.”
When the hostages grew to become a legal responsibility as a substitute of an asset for Hamas
With Israel on board, Trump solely wanted a number of days and an ultimatum for Hamas to comply with go well with.
“We felt that Hamas was at a spot… the place [it] was wanting on the hostages much less as an asset and extra as a legal responsibility,” the senior US official mentioned.
The phobia group issued a press release on October 3 welcoming elements of the deal — most critically, the US plan’s envisioning of the up-front launch of all remaining hostages — whereas indicating that it had disagreements with subsequent phases relating to the “day after” in Gaza.
Celebrations at Hostages Sq. in Tel Aviv after the announcement of a primary part of a hostage-ceasefire deal, October 9, 2025 (Avshalom Sassoni/FLASH90)
Whereas Netanyahu learn Hamas’s reply as an efficient “No,” Witkoff and Kushner checked out it extra positively, believing that there was sufficient there for them to work with.
Trump requested Witkoff and Kushner ‘What are the chances of a deal?’
They responded, “‘100%… As a result of we are able to’t afford to fail, so we’ve no alternative however to get a deal carried out,’” the senior Trump aide mentioned.
Trump instructed them, ‘Something you want me to do, something you want me to face behind. You’ve gotten the total authority to go and do what must be carried out to make a deal,” the senior aide recalled. “That basically gave us a number of room to maneuver to get the ultimate particulars throughout the road.”
Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have been then dispatched to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the place they held technical talks with negotiating groups from Israel and Hamas on Monday and Tuesday.
These talks progressed properly, with the mediators managing to persuade Hamas that Trump was ready to face behind each precept of the 20-point plan, together with its envisioning of Israel’s full, albeit phased, withdrawal from Gaza, the senior US official mentioned.
The information on an area channel in Cairo on October 8, 2025, exhibiting photos of prime negotiator for the Palestinian Hamas motion Khalil al-Hayya (C) arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh for talks on ending the Gaza warfare.
“Everybody can be handled pretty,” Trump has a number of instances emphasised over the previous month, as he has sought to maintain Hamas on board with a plan that sees it lose what it lengthy thought was its greatest leverage (the hostages) through the first 72 hours of the deal.
“He wished either side to grasp that he was going to implement good conduct right here. That was a important and overarching message that we have been there to speak about, and it was very properly acquired,” the senior US official mentioned, including that Trump was very concerned within the Egypt talks from afar, repeatedly phoning in to talk with the mediators.
What Doha strike?
With momentum constructing, Witkoff and Kushner flew to Sharm el-Sheikh, arriving early Wednesday morning and instantly becoming a member of the negotiations together with prime officers from all events.
Critically, the edges agreed to separate the hostage launch from the next elements of the 20-point plan, leaving these thornier points pertaining to the post-war administration of Gaza for later rounds.
This paved the best way for a breakthrough to be reached by Wednesday night, as Center Jap mediators walked between ballrooms inside the identical convention middle the place Israeli and Hamas negotiating groups have been posted.
“We have been going for 20 straight hours, and towards the tip of that, we started to sense that everyone had moved to a spot within the center the place we may see that there was a deal right here,” the senior US official mentioned. “As soon as everyone may see the road, they wished to cross it.”
Israeli negotiator Nitzan Alon (far left) shakes fingers with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani in a photograph indicating success within the mediated Israel-Hamas negotiations on a Gaza hostage-ceasefire settlement in Sharm el-Sheikh, within the early hours of October 9, 2025. Second from proper with again to digital camera is US particular Center East envoy Steve Witkoff. (Telegram / utilized in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright regulation)
Sufficient consensus had developed round all the key points surrounding the hostage-prisoner swap and Israel’s preliminary pull-back from Gaza that after 2 a.m., Witkoff and Kushner decided an announcement might be made.
Minutes later, one went up on Trump’s Fact Social account.
Celebrations in Gaza and Israel have been fast, and the joy prolonged to Sharm el-Sheikh, the place surreal scenes unfolded of Qatari mediators embracing their Israeli counterparts, as if the Doha strike hadn’t occurred precisely one month prior.
Shock friends on the cupboard assembly
A number of hours later, Witkoff and Kushner travelled to Cairo, the place they met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. “We instructed him that we have been grateful for his management, however… we have been going to want him on the implementation part,” the senior US official mentioned.
By Thursday night, the pair had landed in Israel, the place they instantly set out for back-to-back conferences with President Isaac Herzog and Netanyahu shortly earlier than the latter was slated to carry a cupboard assembly to ratify the settlement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Witkoff supplied to current his case in favor of the deal to the cupboard and Netanyahu jumped on the chance.
The 2 American officers caught the ministers without warning, as Netanyahu hadn’t allow them to know prematurely that the pair could be becoming a member of, however they have been nonetheless welcomed with an prolonged applause.
The senior US official clarified that there have been “loads of variations of opinion” voiced by “hardliners,” however “there have been additionally individuals who wished to see the hostages come house above all else, and we explored totally different pathways to succeed in good compromises.”
US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner flank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a cupboard assembly on October 9, 2025. (Maayan Toaf / GPO)
After an over-hour-long look, Witkoff and Kushner left. The cupboard went on to ratify the settlement shortly after midnight Thursday-Friday.
“Individuals are relieved and joyful to see this finish. Most individuals in Israel both have youngsters or neighbors or pals who’re combating within the warfare,” mentioned the senior Trump aide, who briefed reporters alongside the senior US official, each on situation of anonymity.
“With that being mentioned, there’s actual concern there about what is going to occur subsequent. Will Gaza once more pose a risk? If the mechanism that we create and everybody behaves and works correctly, hopefully, we are able to create a brand new paradigm that may result in a extra peaceable and affluent place sooner or later,” the senior Trump aide added.
From part one to part two
Witkoff and Kushner will stay in Israel by way of the hostage releases early subsequent week to make it possible for the deal is correctly carried out.
“There are nonetheless a number of ways in which this could go flawed, so we’re staying on prime of the main points to verify everybody fulfills their obligations and that any misunderstandings are shortly adjudicated,” the senior Trump aide mentioned.
“We need to make it possible for we get to the withdrawal, the ceasefire, after which we get to a spot for the hostages to return house and for the change to be carried out. Then we’ll go into the subsequent part, which is determining what comes subsequent in Gaza,” the Trump aide continued. “We have now a number of ideas and concepts that we’ve been attempting to get developed for a very long time, that now we’ll should get them operationalized.”
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, left, and IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir meet on the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, in a photograph cleared for publication September 6, 2025. (Israel Protection Forces)
One of many first steps in that course of can be deploying round 200 US Central Command troopers to ascertain a process pressure outdoors Gaza, aimed toward supporting the Worldwide Stabilization Drive (ISF) that the Trump plan envisions will regularly exchange the IDF all through the Strip.
Witkoff had CENTCOM Chief Brad Cooper be part of the talks, and the admiral managed to shortly win over the opposite events when he knowledgeable them he may have the duty pressure operational inside two and a half weeks, the senior US official mentioned.
“We’re already speaking to a number of governments about standing up that ISF pressure,” the senior US official mentioned, with out naming the volunteer international locations. Indonesia is the one nation to this point that has publicly supplied to ship troops to Gaza.
“Then there can be discussions, and we’ll see if there’s a true pathway for decommissioning the army installations in Gaza and the heavy arms,” the Trump aide added.
The Trump aide was unmoved by Hamas’s statements rejecting the thought of disarmament. “I wouldn’t pay an excessive amount of consideration to public statements from anybody within the Center East. It’s extra about what persons are saying privately and about what they’re really going to do.”
Whereas the US hasn’t secured monetary commitments from its Arab and Muslim allies, it has lodged safety ensures from these international locations “the place they mentioned they have been going to face behind the decommissioning of the weapons” in Gaza.
Tanks and armored automobiles of the 188th Armored Brigade roll out of the Gaza Strip, early October 10, 2025. (Amutat Barak 188)
Increasing the Abraham Accords
If the second part may be superior, the Trump aide expressed optimism that the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first time period can then be expanded.
“October 7, and the warfare in Gaza created a black cloud over the area and adjusted a number of the sentiment relating to Israel,” the aide acknowledged.
Nonetheless, this deal can reverse these dynamics and revive efforts to dealer normalization offers between Israel and international locations like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Qatar, Mauritania, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, the senior Trump aide maintained.
“Our normal message now’s that being divided and remoted and balkanized hasn’t labored within the Center East. It has simply led to a number of victimization, battle, dangerous blood, misunderstanding,” he mentioned. “However when there’s communication and when international locations have relations, and the individuals get to know one another and do enterprise collectively, that’s a greater recipe for peace and a basis for stability.”
