The Israeli strike on Qatar \u2018undermined\u2019 Gaza ceasefire efforts, US special envoy Steve Witkoff has said<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s senior negotiators in the Gaza peace talks have said they felt \u201cbetrayed\u201d after Israel launched an airstrike on Qatar during mediation efforts.
\nJared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, were key members of the president\u2019s \u201cdealmaking consortium\u201d working to finalize a ceasefire and hostage exchange plan. They took part in talks in Egypt in early October, weeks after Israel struck Doha, killing several people and nearly derailing the process.
\nIn an interview with CBS aired on Friday, Witkoff said he learned about the attack the next morning.
\n\u201cI think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed,\u201d he told the host.
\n\u201cIt had a metastasizing effect because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks. We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Qatar, a US ally and longtime mediator in the Gaza ceasefire, accused Israel of \u201cstate terrorism\u201d after the strike.
\nTrump, who expressed solidarity with Doha, later clarified that the attack had been ordered solely by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the White House learning of it too late to intervene.
\nAsked about Trump\u2019s reaction, Kushner said the president felt Israel was \u201cgetting a little bit out of control in what they were doing.\u201d
\n\u201cIt was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests,\u201d he added.
\nThe strike on the Doha residential neighborhood, aimed at senior Hamas officials attending negotiations, killed six people, including a Qatari security officer, but failed to eliminate the group\u2019s negotiating delegation or senior leadership. Netanyahu later apologized to Qatar, expressing \u201cdeep regret\u201d over the unintended deaths.
\nThe ceasefire agreement \u2013 signed in Sharm el-Sheikh by Trump and mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and T\u00fcrkiye \u2013 called for Israel to withdraw from parts of Gaza and release 20 Israeli hostages in exchange for 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israeli strike on Qatar \u2018undermined\u2019 Gaza ceasefire efforts, US special envoy Steve Witkoff has said US President Donald Trump\u2019s senior negotiators in the Gaza peace talks have said they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t