On Wednesday night, at his Doha waterfront office complex, the Qatari prime minister thought he had a deal. Hamas negotiators, led by a stalwart former lawmaker, have abandoned their 11th-hour demands and left the prime minister's office, the last major hurdle to a ceasefire in Gaza after 466 days of war.
Reporters began to gather in the auditorium downstairs, expecting to witness Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announce that he and other mediators had finally brokered an agreement. was. Two American envoys accompanied Sheikh Mohammed as he prepared his statement.
Two people familiar with the negotiations said a new problem suddenly arose.
In another room on the sixth floor, an Israeli delegation led by the heads of Israel's two main intelligence agencies had their own last-minute demands. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to reveal the names of several Palestinian prisoners Israel will release during the ceasefire.
Sheikh Mohammed sat in the Oval Office with Brett McGurk, President Biden's chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, President-elect Donald J. Trump's deputy, and others as aides tried to resolve the final hurdle. I hope their efforts will not be in vain.
This account of the final day of negotiations is based on conversations with nine people involved in or briefed on the negotiations, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. I spoke.
The ceasefire, finally announced at a belated news conference hours after Israel's new demands, was little different from the one Egypt, Qatar and mediators in the Biden administration have been pushing for much of the past year. Cairo, Doha, and several European capitals throughout 2024.
What pushed the deal over the edge last week was an unlikely partnership in which the current and future US president's special envoys teamed up with the Qatari prime minister in long late-night talks. While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have competed for credibility, the reality is that both representatives played pivotal roles in the final push, each using different approaches to push the Israeli leadership toward a deal, while the Sheikh – Mohammed was focused on Hamas.
Starting last Sunday, an Israeli-Palestinian delegation and two Americans spent long days at the prime minister's official residence near the old market in downtown Doha. The delegations did not speak directly to each other but sat in different rooms on different floors, with Qatari and Egyptian officials passing messages between the two sides.
“They are not natural partners, but the combination of these three individuals and the three worlds they represent was the only way to get this done,” said Thomas R. Neides, former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Ta. “We needed pressure from all sides: pressure from the Arab world, pressure from Biden, pressure from Trump.”
That's McGuirk, a veteran diplomat with a long focus on the Middle East who oversaw U.S. mediation efforts from the first weeks of the war and helped craft the complex details of the agreement nearly a year ago. Witkoff, a real estate investor who plays golf with Trump, was instrumental in persuading Israel to ultimately agree to the deal. And it was Sheikh Mohammed who persuaded Hamas to make key compromises, providing both sides with office space to work out the final details.
The agreement they signed provides for a cessation of fighting for at least six weeks, during which Hamas will gradually release 33 hostages captured during a raid on Israel at the start of the war on October 7, 2023. Agreed. In return, Israel gradually released about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners of war (some of whom are serving life sentences for murder) and hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans. promised to allow him to return to his hometown.
The deal is very similar to the proposal that the two countries largely agreed to between May and July 2024. These talks broke down amid disputes over whether to conclude a permanent or temporary ceasefire, and whether, how and when displaced Gazans should be allowed to return home. Israeli forces could withdraw from Gaza and Hamas could release many hostages in the first weeks of a cease-fire agreement.
As a result, the war dragged on and tens of thousands of Palestinians and several Israeli hostages were killed.
Critics accused Netanyahu of blocking talks to avoid the collapse of his ruling coalition, which includes lawmakers opposed to the deal. Some officials say Hamas purposefully extended the negotiations in the hope that Israel could end up in a broader regional conflict with Hamas' allies Lebanon, Iran and Yemen. Qatar has at times accused both sides of half-hearted engagement and refused to continue mediation.
After Mr. Trump's re-election in November, momentum returned from before the president-elect warned Hamas that if it didn't release the hostages by Inauguration Day, there would be “hell to pay”. He appointed Witkoff, who had no diplomatic experience but had expanded business ties in Qatar, as special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff played golf with Trump in September in what law enforcement officials said was an attempt to threaten the lives of the former president and president-elect.
Members of the Biden administration quietly reached out to Witkoff and asked if they could help negotiate a ceasefire, according to two people familiar with the conversations. One of the people said that despite the deep political rift between their bosses, Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Witkoff began to work together, sometimes speaking multiple times a day.
Still, a wide rift remained between Hamas and Israel. Just before Christmas, with just weeks left in President Biden's term, McGuirk returned home from a visit to Doha depressed. He told the Qataris that he would not fly back unless Hamas clearly expressed interest in a deal, two people familiar with his thinking said.
That moment came on the first day of January, according to two people involved in the process. Officials said Sheikh Mohammed persuaded Hamas to confirm the names of more than 30 hostages to be released in the first six weeks of the cease-fire agreement, indicating that Hamas was genuinely interested in the deal. This is a long-awaited move that shows that The reasons for Hamas's turnaround remain unclear, but analysts say Israel's growing control over its main allies Hezbollah and Iran has left the group feeling isolated and that He said he felt the group had been weakened by the losses.
McGuirk was alerted to the incident on January 4 while attending his daughter's birthday party at an indoor trampoline park, two people familiar with the incident said. He left the party midway through and immediately flew to Doha, where he met with Sheikh Mohammed, Egyptian negotiators, and Israeli negotiators. Witkoff joined the prime minister on January 10 and agreed with Sheikh Mohammed that the U.S. side would jointly focus on placating Israel while the prime minister pressured Hamas.
The main remaining differences centered on the depth of the buffer zone that Israel sought to maintain within Gaza's borders and the number of prisoners exchanged for wounded and sick hostages.
The new breakthrough came after Witkoff's impromptu visit to Jerusalem last Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, according to four officials briefed on the talks.
Mr. Witkoff sat with Mr. Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, and Mr. McGuirk also participated in the discussions by phone.
Two Americans pressed Netanyahu to ease the last two major hurdles, according to people familiar with the discussions. McGuirk warned Israeli leaders that they risk losing their best chance for a deal. Mr. Witkoff then applied the necessary pressure and emphasized to Mr. Netanyahu that Mr. Trump wanted the deal to go through, the people said.
Four officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to have changed his tune after the meeting. He immediately ordered four senior negotiators to go to Doha, including Israel's foreign intelligence chief, David Balnea, and Israel's domestic spy chief, Ronen Barr.
Over the next four days, Sheikh Mohammed hosted a series of meetings, mostly in his private office, where Hamas officials, Israeli negotiators, Egyptian intelligence agents, and two Americans met with him, sometimes until the early hours of the morning. did.
The Israeli and Hamas teams had never met because they were based on different floors. They took turns entering the prime minister's office to learn the latest position of the enemy.
Because of the nature of Hamas' chain of command, Qatari leaders needed to confirm certain details with their leaders in Gaza, all of whom were hidden and difficult to contact, which at times hindered progress.
Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Witkoff also contacted their respective bosses frequently. At times, while McGuirk spoke with Biden, Witkoff, a few feet away, was talking on the phone with Trump and his team, according to a person familiar with the situation.
“We were negotiating word by word, sentence by sentence, official by official,” said Mohamed Al Khraifi, Minister of State at Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “It's mentally and physically exhausting.”
The biggest development occurred near midnight Sunday night, according to three people familiar with the situation at the time.
Sheikh Mohammed told the two Americans that a deal could be reached if Israel could compromise two more times, one of the people said.
Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Witkoff walked together down the hallway to the Israelis' room, where negotiators were already talking to Mr. Netanyahu on the phone. The American participants in the call told Israeli leaders that an agreement could be reached if they agreed to slightly increase the number of prisoners involved in the exchange and slightly reduce the depth of the buffer zone.
After a loud discussion in Hebrew between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his team, the two sides reached a compromise.
The American is back with an update on Sheikh Mohammed.
“We will reach an agreement,” the Qatari leader told the envoy, according to a person familiar with the situation.
After a year of failures, around midnight Sunday, they thought they had reached an agreement, although they would argue over the final details.
Still, more trouble arose on Wednesday. A press conference was scheduled for the evening, but Hamas suddenly tried to restart discussions about how much land Israeli forces would continue to control along the Egypt-Gaza border.
Later, after Egyptian and Qatari leaders persuaded Hamas to withdraw, Israel asked for more clarity on which Palestinian prisoners it would release.
Thousands of miles away in the Oval Office, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sat with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, awaiting word from McGuirk.
The identity of the last prisoner has not yet been disclosed by the two countries, according to people familiar with the discussions, even though Sheikh Mohammed finally announced the deal on Wednesday night.
But Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Witkoff felt confident enough to tell their superiors that a ceasefire would be reached, people familiar with the scene said.
This final altercation lasted until Thursday, when McGuirk and Witkoff finally left Qatar that night.
The agreement was solidified and became one of the most unlikely combinations in diplomatic history.
aaron boxerman and ronen bergman Contributed to the report.
