Steve Witkoff was just a spectator 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 of diplomacy — was in Israel as Donald Trump’s chosen Middle East envoy, cajoling and pressuring Netanyahu to make concessions to end the devastating 15-month war in Gaza.
After grinding on-off talks, countless false dawns and seemingly never-ending problems, the odds appeared stacked against a breakthrough 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 in Doha finally declared that Israel and Hamas had agreed a ceasefire — enabling the release of hostages held in the besieged strip — Witkoff was present with the other mediators.
“What has changed over the last eight months? It was Trump and Witkoff. The way Trump has operated has really shown the difference,” said a person briefed on the talks.
The structure of the deal — a multi-phased proposal ultimately leading 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 eventually sealed the deal.
Trump had made a big issue of Middle East peace during his campaign and attacked Biden’s failure to secure a ceasefire; after the vote, he moved quickly to back his rhetoric. Witkoff, his surprise appointment as Middle East envoy, was dispatched to Qatar on November 22 — less than three weeks after his election victory.
In Doha, Witkoff met Sheikh Mohammed to get an update on the stalled talks and understand why Qatar — which was frustrated with the warring parties for the lack of progress in talks as well as the criticism it was drawing for hosting Hamas — had suspended its role as a mediator.
He then flew to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu. It is not known whether Witkoff delivered any precise threats from Trump or made promises to Israel in the event of a deal — both trademarks of Trump diplomacy, which is unpredictable and transactional by equal measure.
But the impact was clear: a day later, on November 24, Israel’s top negotiator David Barnea, head of the Mossad spy agency, was travelling to meet Sheikh Mohammed in Vienna.
“That’s when things kick-started, and it was a completely different willingness from the Israeli side,” said the person briefed on the talks.
Witkoff, a close friend of Trump who is also known to Qatari officials through his real estate business, had suddenly become the weathermaker in an unlikely negotiating team led by Biden’s top Middle East adviser Brett McGurk.
In directing their envoys to co-ordinate, Biden and Trump both temporarily put aside their fierce personal and political rivalry — a small miracle in its own right.
Their challenge was clear. Netanyahu spent much of the last year running circles around Biden’s mediators, several times coming close to a deal before introducing new terms, such as fresh demands including that Israeli troops should remain in the Philadelphi corridor, a slither of territory that runs along the Gazan-Egyptian border.
Even some Israeli security officials accused Netanyahu of blocking the process, but the Biden administration, at least in public, largely echoed Israel in blaming Hamas for the failure of the talks.
By this point Israel had largely completed its battlefield objectives against Hamas: the militant group’s military capacity was shattered and Israel had assassinated virtually all the group’s top leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attack.
Biden’s team had long concluded that there would be no deal as long as Sinwar was alive. But even after Israel assassinated him in October, the Gaza talks were still stuck. Netanyahu was publicly insisting he would never agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza or withdraw Israeli troops from the besieged strip — and there was no sign of him budging.
Trump’s election win jolted the Gaza talks and created a new reality: any deal agreed by Biden would be implemented by Trump.
In early December, Trump made it clear that he wanted the conflict over by the time he took office in January, posting on his Truth Social platform: “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025 . . . there will be 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 travelled to Israel to make a final push to resuscitate the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostage talks.
There were suspicions that Netanyahu would wait to deliver a win to Trump, rather than the lame-duck Biden presidency. The Israeli PM also faced constant pressure from far-right allies who have threatened to leave his governing coalition if he agreed to a deal with Hamas or “surrendered” to the Palestinians — a factor he was still struggling to manage after the deal was announced.
But people briefed on the talks said Witkoff was at several points unwilling to tolerate the discussions languishing. With Trump’s backing, he was direct with Netanyahu about what needed to happen and offered assurances of strong US support for Israel, the people said.
“He gives us a lot of authority to speak on his behalf, and he exhorts us to speak emphatically. And emphatically means: ‘You better do this’,” Witkoff told reporters in Palm Beach last week.
McGurk returned to the region in early January shortly after Hamas made a key concession: it agreed to a list of some 34 hostages to be released during the first phase of the deal, one senior US administration official said.
But again the momentum in talks began to fade. Witkoff flew back to Doha to meet Sheikh Mohammed at the end of last week to discuss the hold-ups, and agreed that Witkoff would push the Israelis while Qatar pressured Hamas.
With the agreement of McGurk, Witkoff then travelled back to Israel to meet Netanyahu — an unscheduled trip during Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Next Witkoff joined McGurk and Barnea, Israel’s top negotiator, in Doha, where they remained until the deal was finalised. The talks took place in Sheikh Mohammed’s office or residence, often running late into the night.
At points Hamas’s negotiators were present in the same building, just one floor below.
Many in the Arab world and beyond believed Biden repeatedly failed to use his leverage over Netanyahu to agree to a deal or rein in Israel’s ferocious offensive in Gaza as he staunchly stood by the Jewish state.
When Witkoff engaged, by contrast, the Israelis seemed more biddable. “He operated with this as though he was trying to get a business deal through,” the person briefed on the talks said. “He put the right pressure. There’s a feeling that when he met the Israelis, there was progress.”
At first McGurk and Witkoff were in touch and simply briefing each other. But in the final stages of talks, they decided it would make sense for Witkoff to join the negotiations directly.
They knew any breakthrough would depend on Netanyahu accepting critical points that had previously derailed a deal, such as where Israeli forces in Gaza would redeploy.
That was where Witkoff played his part, backed by Trump’s political clout. Netanyahu was aware that during his first term, Trump pushed through a string of pro-Israeli policies that upended years of US policy in the Middle East.
“The only difference is Trump. Netanyahu does want to align with Trump . . . they [the Americans] made clear that they want quiet here,” said another person familiar with the talks.
Trump’s win also galvanised Qatar and Egypt to put fresh pressure on Hamas.
“The Trump effect was not only on Bibi, it was also on Qatar and Egypt,” said Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace negotiator now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They were leaning on Hamas because they both have a stake in showing Trump: ‘Look what we did’.”
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
