The sheikh, the Mongols, and the diplomat: the trio that concluded the Gaza truce

At his coastal office complex in Doha on Wednesday evening, the Qatari prime minister thought he had reached an agreement. Hamas negotiators, led by a burly former lawmaker, had left the Prime Minister’s Office, having abandoned an 11th-hour demand that was the last major obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza after 466 days of war.

Journalists had begun to gather in a hall downstairs, expecting to see the Prime Minister. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al ThaniHe announced that he and other mediators had finally brokered an agreement. Sheikh Mohammed was joined by two American envoys while preparing his statement.

Suddenly, a new problem arose, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

In another room on the sixth floor, the Israeli delegation, led by the heads of Israel’s two main intelligence agencies, had a last-minute request of its own. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to clarify the names of a group of Palestinian prisoners that Israel will release during the truce.

As his aides tried to solve the final hurdle, Sheikh Mohammed sat in his office with him Brett McGurkPresident Biden’s chief negotiator, W Steve Witkoffrepresenting President-elect Donald J. Trump, expressing his hope that their efforts have not been in vain.

This account of the final days of negotiations is based on conversations with nine people who participated in or were briefed on the talks, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The truce that was eventually announced at a late news conference, hours after the new Israeli request, was little different from the versions promoted over much of the past year by mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the Biden administration, whose representatives have met frequently with the warring parties. In Cairo, Doha and many European capitals throughout 2024.

What pushed the agreement over the line last week was the unlikely partnership between envoys of America’s current and future presidents, working alongside the Qatari prime minister in marathon late-night meetings. While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump vied for credit, the reality is that their representatives were crucial to the final push, with each using different tactics to push the Israeli leadership toward an agreement while Sheikh Mohammed focused on Hamas.

Starting last Sunday, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations, in addition to the two American delegations, spent long days at the Prime Minister’s Residence, close to Jerusalem. Old market In downtown Doha. The two delegations, who do not speak directly to each other, sat in different rooms on different floors, and Qatari and Egyptian officials passed messages between the two sides.

Thomas R. said: “They’re not natural partners, but the combination of these three individuals, and the three worlds they represent, was the only thing that was going to make it happen,” said Nides, former US ambassador to Israel. “I needed pressure from all sides — pressure from the Arab world, pressure from Biden, pressure from Trump.”

A group of officials and interlocutors have helped move the negotiations forward for more than a year; On the American side, Mr. McGurk helped oversee American mediation efforts from the first weeks of the war alongside other key players, including the head of the CIA, William Burns.

But in recent days, it has come down to the trio. It was Mr. McGurk, a veteran diplomat long focused on the Middle East, who helped craft the complex details of the deal nearly a year ago. It was Mr. Witkoff, a real estate investor He plays golf With Mr. Trump, who was instrumental in convincing Israel to finally agree to the contents of the deal. It was Sheikh Mohammed who convinced Hamas to make basic concessions, while providing office space for the two sides to discuss final details.

The agreement they concluded stipulates a cessation of fighting for at least six weeks, during which Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages who were captured during the raid launched by the movement on Israel at the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023. In return, Israel committed to the gradual release of approximately Of the 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences for murder, allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Gaza to return to their homes.

The agreement closely resembles proposals the two sides nearly agreed on between May and July 2024. Those talks collapsed amid disagreements over whether to reach a permanent or temporary truce, and whether and how displaced Gazans would be allowed to return to their homes. How and when. Israeli forces may withdraw from Gaza, and the number of hostages Hamas may release in the first weeks of the truce.

As a result, the war continued, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, as well as many Israeli hostages.

Critics accused Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks to avoid the collapse of his ruling coalition, which includes lawmakers opposed to reaching an agreement. Others said that Hamas deliberately prolonged the negotiations in the hope that Israel would become entrenched in a broader regional conflict with Hamas’ allies in Lebanon, Iran and Yemen. At times, Qatar has refused to continue mediation, accusing both sides of being cold-hearted.

Momentum returned after Trump’s re-election in November, even before the president-elect warned Hamas that they would “pay a heavy price” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration. He appointed Mr. Witkopf, who did not yet have any diplomatic experience Growing trade relations in QatarAs his envoy to the Middle East. Mr. Witkoff was playing golf with Mr. Trump in September during what law enforcement officials said An attempt to assassinate the former and future president.

Quietly, members of the Biden administration have reached out to Mr. Witkopf to see if they can work together on ceasefire talks, according to two people familiar with the talks. Despite the wide political gulf between their bosses, Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff began coordinating, sometimes speaking several times a day, according to one of the people.

However, wide gaps remain between Hamas and Israel. Shortly before Christmas, and just weeks before a Biden presidency, a despondent Mr. McGurk returned from a trip to Doha. He told the Qataris that he would not return unless Hamas gave a clear signal of its interest in reaching an agreement, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

That moment came in the first days of January, according to two people involved in the operation. The sources said Sheikh Mohammed convinced Hamas to confirm the names of more than 30 hostages who will be released during the first six weeks of the truce, a long-awaited move that indicates the movement is genuinely interested in reaching an agreement. The reason behind Hamas’ shift remains unclear, but analysts say Israel’s increasing dominance over Hamas’s main allies, Hezbollah and Iran, has made the group feel isolated, while its losses on the battlefield in Gaza have made it feel weak.

Mr. McGurk was informed of the hack while attending his daughter’s birthday party at an indoor trampoline park on January 4, according to two people familiar with the event. He left the party halfway, and immediately headed to Doha to meet Sheikh Mohammed, his Egyptian counterparts, and the Israeli negotiators. Mr. Witkoff joined him on January 10, and they agreed with Sheikh Mohammed that the Americans would jointly focus on currying favor with Israel while the prime minister pressured Hamas.

The main remaining disagreements centered on the depth of the buffer zone that Israel sought to maintain within Gaza’s borders, as well as the number of prisoners to be exchanged for wounded and sick hostages.

It was Mr. Witkoff’s visit to Jerusalem last Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, on short notice, that achieved a new breakthrough, according to four officials familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Witkoff sat with Mr. Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, and Mr. McGurk joined the discussion by phone.

The two Americans pressed Netanyahu to ease the last two major hurdles, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Mr. McGurk warned the Israeli leader that he risked losing his best chance to reach an agreement. The source said that Mr. Witkoff then exerted the necessary pressure, assuring Mr. Netanyahu that Mr. Trump wanted to complete this deal.

Four officials said that after the meeting, Netanyahu appeared to have changed his position. He immediately ordered his four top negotiators – including David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, and Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence – to Doha.

Over the next four days, Sheikh Mohammed hosted a series of marathon meetings, most of them in his personal office, where Hamas officials, Israeli negotiators, Egyptian intelligence officers and the two Americans spoke with him, sometimes into the early hours of the morning.

The Israeli and Hamas teams, stationed on different floors, had never seen each other; They took turns entering the Prime Minister’s office to get updates on their enemy’s latest position.

Progress has been hampered at times by the nature of Hamas’s leadership structure, which requires its leaders in Qatar to verify some details with their counterparts in Gaza, all of whom are hidden and difficult to reach.

Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff often corresponded with their bosses; At times, Mr. McGurk would talk with Mr. Biden while Mr. Witkoff, just yards away, was on the phone with Mr. Trump or his team, according to a person familiar with the scene.

Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, Minister of State in the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “We were negotiating word for word, sentence for sentence, and formula for formula.” “It becomes mentally and physically exhausting.”

The biggest breach came near midnight on Sunday, according to three people familiar with the moment.

Sheikh Mohammed told the Americans that the deal could be closed if Israel was able to make two more concessions, according to one of the sources.

Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff walked together down the corridor to the Israelis’ room, where negotiators were already speaking on the phone with Mr. Netanyahu. The Americans joined the call, telling the Israeli leader that an agreement could be reached if he agreed to slightly increase the number of prisoners participating in the exchange, as well as slightly reduce the depth of the buffer zone.

After a heated discussion in Hebrew between Mr. Netanyahu and his team, they reached a settlement.

The Americans returned to inform Sheikh Mohammed of the latest developments.

“We will have an agreement,” the Qatari leader told the envoys, according to the person familiar with the scene.

After a year of failure, around midnight Sunday, they thought they had reached an agreement, subject to disagreement over the final, small details.

However, Wednesday brought more obstacles. With the press conference scheduled for the evening, Hamas suddenly attempted to reopen the debate over the amount of territory that Israeli forces would continue to control along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Then, after Egyptian and Qatari leaders succeeded in convincing Hamas to back down, Israel pushed for greater clarity about which Palestinian prisoners would be released.

Thousands of miles away, in the Oval Office, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, sat with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, waiting for news from Mr. McGurk.

Even when Sheikh Mohammed finally announced the deal on Wednesday night, both sides were still clarifying the identities of the last prisoners, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

But Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff felt confident enough to tell their superiors that a ceasefire would be reached, said one of the people familiar with the scene.

This latest argument continued into Thursday, with Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff finally leaving Qatar that night.

The deal was cemented, and thus it was one of the most unexpected dualities in diplomatic history.

Aaron Puckerman and Ronen Bergman Contributed to reports.