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Steve Wittkoff was the only visitor at the US Capitol when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress in July, an experience the real estate investor described as “epic” and “spiritual.”
Five months later, the Bronx-born businessman — with no experience in diplomacy — was in Israel as Donald Trump’s chosen Middle East envoy, lobbying and pressuring Netanyahu to make concessions to end the devastating 15-month war in Gaza.
After on-off talks, countless false dawns and seemingly never-ending problems, the odds against a breakthrough appear before the end of Joe Biden’s term as US president.
So it was telling that when Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani finally announced in Doha that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire — enabling the release of hostages held in the besieged Valley — Wittkoff was present, along with other mediators.
“What has changed in the last eight months? It was Trump and Witkoff. The way Trump acted really made the difference,” one person briefed on the discussion said.
D Structure of the contract — a multi-phase proposal that ultimately leads to peace and reconstruction — was first conceived by mediators and publicly endorsed by Biden more than six months ago. But it was Trump’s imprimatur that ultimately sealed the deal.
Trump made Middle East peace a big issue during his campaign and attacked Biden’s failure to secure a ceasefire; After the vote, he moved quickly to back up his rhetoric. Witkoff, his surprise appointment as ambassador to the Middle East, was sent to Qatar on November 22 – less than three weeks after his election victory.
In Doha, Witkoff met with Sheikh Mohammed to get an update on the stalled talks and to understand why Qatar — which was frustrated with the lack of progress in the talks as well as the warring parties criticized for hosting Hamas — postponed its role. As a mediator.
He then went to Tel Aviv to meet with Netanyahu. It’s not known whether Witkoff offered any specific threats from Trump or promises to Israel in terms of deals — both trademarks of Trump’s diplomacy, which is unpredictable and negotiable in equal measure.
But the impact was clear: a day later, on November 24, Israel’s top negotiator David Barnia, head of the Mossad spy agency, was traveling to Vienna to meet Sheikh Mohammed.
“That’s when things kick-started, and it was a completely different desire from the Israeli side,” the person briefed on the talks.
Witkoff, a close friend of Trump’s who is also known to Qatari officials through his real estate business, has suddenly become the weatherman of an unlikely negotiating team led by Biden’s top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk.
To direct the coordination of their envoys, both Biden and Trump temporarily put aside their fierce personal and political rivalries — a small miracle in its own right.
Their challenge was clear. Netanyahu has spent much of the past year running circles around Biden’s mediators, several times coming close to a deal before introducing new conditions, such as new demands that Israeli troops stay in the Philadelphia Corridor, a strip of territory that runs through Gaza. Egyptian border.
Even some Israeli security officials have accused Netanyahu of blocking the process, but the Biden administration has, at least publicly, echoed Israel in blaming Hamas for the failure of the talks.
By this point Israel had largely accomplished its battlefield objectives against Hamas: the militant group’s military capabilities had been shattered, and Israel had killed virtually all of the group’s top leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attacks.
Biden’s team had long concluded that there would be no deal as long as Sinwar lived. But Gaza talks stalled after Israel killed him in October. Netanyahu has publicly insisted he will never agree to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza or withdraw Israeli troops from the besieged area – and he has shown no signs of budging.
Trump’s election victory rocked the Gaza talks and created a new reality: Any deal agreed to by Biden would be implemented by Trump.
In early December, Trump made it clear that he wanted to end the conflict by the time he took office in January, posting on his Truth social platform: “If the hostages are not released before January 20, 2025. . . All hell to pay in the Middle East.” The post came shortly after Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago club with Netanyahu’s wife Sara and his son Yair.
By mid-December, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and McGurk traveled to Israel to make a final push to revive hostage negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire.
There was doubt that Netanyahu would wait for Trump to win rather than a lame-duck Biden presidency. The Israeli prime minister also faces continued pressure from right-wing allies who have threatened to leave his ruling coalition if he agrees to a deal with Hamas or “surrenders” to the Palestinians – one of the reasons he is still struggle to manage After the contract was announced.
But people briefed on the talks said Witkoff was unwilling to tolerate stalled talks at various stages. In support of Trump, he has been direct with Netanyahu about what needs to happen and has assured strong U.S. support for Israel, the people said.
“He gives us a lot of authority to speak for him and he advises us to speak forcefully. And emphatically means: ‘You better do it,'” Wittkoff told reporters in Palm Beach last week.
McGurk returned to the region in early January only after Hamas made a key concession: It agreed to a list of about 34 hostages to be released in the first phase of the deal, a senior US administration official said.
But the momentum of the talks started to fade again. Wittkoff returned to Doha late last week to meet Sheikh Mohammed and agreed that Wittkoff would pressure the Israelis while Qatar pressured Hamas.
With McGurk’s agreement, Witkoff then flew back to Israel to meet with Netanyahu — an unscheduled visit on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Witkoff later joined top Israeli negotiators McGurk and Barnia in Doha, where they remained until the deal was finalized. Discussions took place in Sheikh Mohammed’s office or residence, often lasting late into the night.
At points Hamas negotiators were present in the same building, just on the same floor.
Many in the Arab world and beyond believe that Biden has repeatedly failed to use his leverage over Netanyahu to agree to a deal or rein in Israel’s violent assault on Gaza because he has staunchly sided with the Jewish state.
When Wittkoff was appointed, by contrast, the Israelis seemed more biddable. “He handled it like he was trying to make a business deal,” the person briefed on the negotiations said. “He applied the right pressure. A sense that when he met the Israelis, there was progress.”
At first McGurk and Witkoff kept in touch and only briefed each other. But in the final stages of negotiations, they decided that it would make sense for Wittkoff to join the negotiations directly.
They knew any progress would depend on Netanyahu accepting critical points that previously derailed a deal, such as where to redeploy Israeli forces to Gaza.
That’s where Witkoff played his part, backed by Trump’s political influence. Netanyahu was aware that in his first term, Trump advanced a string of pro-Israel policies that carried over years of US policy in the Middle East.
“The only difference is Trump. Netanyahu wants to align with Trump . . . they [the Americans] Made it clear that they want it quiet here,” said another person familiar with the discussions.
Trump’s victory helped Qatar and Egypt put renewed pressure on Hamas.
“Trump’s influence wasn’t just on Bibi, it was on Qatar and Egypt,” said Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace negotiator at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They were leaning toward Hamas because they both have a part to show Trump: ‘Look what we’ve done’.”
The ceasefire is now due to take effect on Sunday, when the first hostages should be released – the day before Trump’s January 20 inauguration.
Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv
Cartography by Aditi Bhandari
