In a revealing disclosure, the two men at the forefront of negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas shared the intriguing details behind convincing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an apology to Qatari officials. This followed a devastating attack on Hamas targets in Qatar.

Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, recounted how the unexpected events on September 9 left President Trump in a state of frustration. The attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of the son of chief Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, posed a threat to the delicate peace talks. Kushner and Witkoff emphasized that Trump had been unaware of Netanyahu’s intentions to target Doha, leaving them feeling blindsided by the incident. Kushner remarked, “I think he felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control,” and noted that Trump believed it was imperative to rein in actions that were not aligned with long-term interests.

The fallout from the attack was swift, with Hamas leaders retreating from negotiations that had been active up until the day before. In an interview aired on 60 Minutes, Witkoff stressed the critical nature of the apology, stating, “The apology needed to happen. We were not moving forward without it, and the president insisted to [Netanyahu], ‘People apologize.'” He described the apology as the crucial step that unlocked further progress in the peace process. On September 29, Trump facilitated Netanyahu’s apology to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, guiding him through a scripted statement from the Oval Office.

The President also gave Qatar a new security guarantee – and even allowed Kushner and Witkoff to speak directly with Hamas officials, despite the United States designating the group as a terrorist organization. The new revelations came as Trump responded to claims that Hamas has once again started firing at Israeli targets. ‘They’ve been doing some shooting and we think maybe the leadership isn’t involved in that, that it’s some rebels within,’ the President told reporters on Air Force One. ‘But either way, it’s going to be handled toughly, but properly.’ He added that the ceasefire Kushner and Witkoff worked so hard to achieve still remains in effect.

In order to get the deal across the finish line, Kushner and Witkoff traveled to Egypt on October 8, where they met with al-Hayya. Despite their differences, Kushner and Witkoff were then able to make some headway in the negotiations when Witkoff spoke about his own son, Andrew, who died of an opioid overdose at the age of 22. ‘We expressed our condolences to him for the loss of his son. He mentioned it,’ Witkoff recounted. ‘And I told him that I had lost a son, and that we were both members of a really bad club, parents who have buried children.’ At that moment, Kushner said ‘it turned from a negotiation with a terrorist group to seeing two human beings kind of showing a vulnerability with each other.’

Once an understanding was struck, Kushner and Witkoff were able to assure Hamas that the United States would stand behind its deal and that Trump would not allow the deal to be violated . When the deal was then reached, Witkoff said Israelis and Qataris – who were acting as the liaisons for Hamas – hugged. ‘I thought to myself, “I wish the world could’ve seen it,”‘ Witkoff said. Images of smoke billowing over the Qatari capital last month stunned the world and caught leaders off guard, as it marked the first time Israel had ever attacked Qatar – a nation that Trump has grown increasingly close to in recent times. Just months before, Trump announced that he had accepted a $400 million Boeing 747 luxury jet from the Qataris as a gift, and many in the President’s inner circle – including Kushner – have an array of business interests tied to the nation.

Trump quickly showed his disapproval of Netanyahu’s unexpected move in Doha. Taking to Truth Social hours later, he wrote that he ‘immediately directed special envoy Steve Witkoff to inform the Qataris of the impending attack, which he did, however, unfortunately, too late to stop the attack.’ ‘I view Qatar as a strong ally and friend and feel very badly about the location of the attack,’ Trump wrote. ‘I want ALL of the hostages, and bodies of the dead, released, and this War to END, NOW!’ Trump’s 20-point peace plan was finally signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on October 13 to mark the end of the two-year Gaza war. In the aftermath, Kushner traveled to the Gaza Strip – where he said he was struck by the devastation he saw.

‘It looked almost like a nuclear bomb went off in that area,’ he recounted. ‘And then you see these people moving back, and I asked the IDF where are they going. Like I’m looking around and these are all ruins. ‘And they said, “Well they’re going back to the areas where their destroyed home was, onto their plot, and they’re gonna pitch a tent.”‘ ‘And it’s very sad because you think to yourself they really have nowhere else to go,’ Kushner said. Still, he and Witkoff denied there was ever a ‘genocide’ in the region. ‘There was a war being fought,’ Witkoff noted. Meanwhile, in Israel the accord meant the return of hostages taken during the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack, which Witkoff and Kushner said was something they had to convince Hamas leadership to agree to. ‘The notion was to convince everybody that those 20 Israeli hostages who were alive were no longer assets for Hamas. They were a liability,’ Witkoff said.

Kushner then explained that they had to get Hamas to think about what it was gaining from keeping the hostages. ‘You had tens of thousands of Palestinians who were killed in these wars,’ he noted. Yet questions remain over how long the truce will last, after images emerged showing Hamas executing Palestinians that it perceived as ‘collaborators’ with Israel. Kushner said the actions, though horrific, were ultimately not surprising. ‘Hamas right now is doing exactly what you would expect a terrorist organization to do, which is to try to reconstitute and take back their positions,’ he said. ‘The success or failure of this will be if Israel and this international mechanism is able to create a viable alternative. ‘If they are successful, Hamas will fail, and Gaza will not be a threat to Israel in the future.’