How a Missile Strike Unlocked a Deal for Peace in Gaza

 U.S. and Arab mediators had worked fruitlessly for months to craft a deal to at least pause the fighting in Gaza and free more of the Israeli hostages held there. In the end, it was an act of war that set the stage for an ambitious plan to end the conflict once and for all.

On Sept. 9, Israeli missiles slammed into an office in Qatar where Palestinian militant group Hamas’s top negotiators were meeting to discuss President Trump’s latest proposal for a cease-fire. The attack on the soil of a major U.S. security partner came with little warning to Trump and none for Qatar.

Qatar and its Persian Gulf neighbors, who had acted as vital go-betweens for the U.S., Israel and Hamas were furious and demanded Israel set things right. Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff feared their peace efforts would go off the rails.

Trump decided to try to turn the crisis to his advantage.

The attack was a sobering reminder to Arab countries of the risk of regional escalation, focusing their minds on peace. It also gave Trump some more leverage over a chastened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders who were now becoming a bigger risk for their Arab hosts.

Trump and his aides redoubled efforts. And after three weeks of shuttle diplomacy and frequent meetings among top officials from Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Trump stood before cameras in the White House and announced that he had a plan.

Netanyahu, standing by his side, voiced acceptance of the plan and said he was willing to end the war. A host of Arab and Muslim leaders followed suit.

It was, in Trump’s estimation, “potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.”

Central to the effort were a series of sometimes heated meetings among Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer, and top officials from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, people involved in the talks said.

Now the hard work begins. The deal the Trump team pulled together reflects frequently discussed elements of proposals stretching back to the early months of the war, but also contained provisions that angered many of its constituents.

Netanyahu objects to any serious reference to a Palestinian state or involvement by the Palestinian Authority, which governs part of the West Bank. Hamas bristles at fully disarming and wants better guarantees Israel will withdraw. Arab governments are concerned the deal is so tough on Hamas and so weak on a path to a Palestinian state that they can’t sell it to their citizens.

The result is a risky game of chicken where no one wants to publicly shoot down a plan that privately many don’t think they can accept in full. Trump is steaming ahead, calling everyone’s bluff by accepting their statements of support without acknowledging their reservations.

The president is sending the high-profile team of Kushner and Witkoff to talks in Egypt in the coming days to close the deal on a hostage release and push forward the broader plan. A senior Israeli delegation, including Dermer, is expected to meet them soon.

This account of how the deal came together is based on interviews with officials in the White House, Israel’s government and Arab capitals.

The main components of Trump’s 20-point plan have long been seen as the necessary elements of any agreement: Hamas surrendering hostages and giving up power; Israel pulling back troops; an Arab international force to provide security in Gaza; and Palestinian technocrats to administer the enclave.

But crosscutting concerns for months had made it impossible to gain traction. Hamas didn’t want to release its remaining hostages without a guaranteed end to the war. Israel wasn’t willing to fully leave Gaza until Hamas was neutralized. Arab governments were reluctant to send in troops and look like occupiers working for Israel and wanted a commitment to a Palestinian state before coming in.

Those hurdles led to a frustrating series of meetings through the spring and summer where negotiators went back and forth between discussions around a comprehensive deal to resolve the war or a more achievable limited hostage release in exchange for a temporary cease-fire. They made little headway with either.

Netanyahu drew a hard line in the talks, demanding Hamas capitulate and shifting his focus to resolving the conflict through military action rather than diplomacy.

Meanwhile, international alarm about the war was growing. Israel’s 2½-month embargo on aid into Gaza this spring had left the enclave desperately low on food, prompting international experts to declare a famine around Gaza City, where a million Palestinians were sheltering. The number of people killed in the war climbed well above 60,000, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants.

Israel eased the constraints on food but then announced plans for a major offensive to take Gaza City. Germany, a loyal ally, suspended arms deliveries in response, and a number of Western governments said they would recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in late September.

Israel responded by hinting it could annex the West Bank, the heart of any future state. That was a red line for Arab governments. The United Arab Emirates, the key party to the Abraham Accords, publicly warned the move could put Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement in jeopardy.

Then came the Doha strike. The White House said Trump learned of the attack from the U.S. military, which got a vague heads up from Israel before figuring out the target was Doha when space-based sensors picked up the missiles. The president instructed Witkoff to alert Qatar, but the warning came after the missiles had landed.

Witkoff had met with Dermer and Kushner in his Miami home just days before the strike to work out terms of a peace deal. The Israeli official said nothing of the attack to come. Witkoff and Kushner were offended by the strike and lack of notification.

“This is not the conduct of a friend,” Witkoff would later tell Dermer.

Trump, his frustration boiling over, was less polite. “He’s f—ing me,” Trump said about Netanyahu, according to officials who heard the comment.

America’s Persian Gulf partners were also incensed, and the Arab consensus that came together surprised the White House and Netanyahu. Qatar, like many Gulf states, is wealthy but small and relies on the U.S. for protection. The attack not only disrupted the talks but the entire region’s sense of security and confidence in the U.S.

Qatar cut off all communication with Israel, including intelligence sharing, and demanded an apology before it would come back to the table. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani flew to Washington for a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. That evening, he joined Trump and Witkoff for dinner at Trump Tower in New York.

The Americans were in triage mode, as a senior administration official put it. Trump assured the Qatari leader that the U.S. had nothing to do with Israel’s strike. Washington would work to ensure nothing like it ever happened again and wanted to get peace talks back on track.

Days later, Thani called Witkoff with a proposal. The U.N. General Assembly was fast approaching. Would Trump be open to hosting a meeting with Arab and Muslim leaders about an American peace plan for Gaza? Witkoff called Trump, and the president quickly agreed.

Ahead of the meeting, Witkoff, Vance, Rubio and Kushner spoke often with Trump about what they wanted to accomplish. Trump’s preference was clear: use the moment to end the war. No piecemeal agreements, no more fighting, no more hostages, and start rebuilding Gaza.

Witkoff and Kushner paired up to draft something to present. There were multiple proposals floating around for months: one by the U.S., others by France and Saudi Arabia. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had crafted another. The U.S. team decided to combine the best elements of each into a single plan. What was once a roughly seven-point plan the U.S. and Israel had discussed turned into a 21-point proposal.

On Sept. 23, Trump chaired a meeting with Arab and Muslim leaders on the sidelines of an annual U.N. conference to present the plan. He reiterated his desire to get a deal done, and asked Witkoff to outline what the U.S. had in mind. For expediency’s sake, Witkoff narrowed the 21 points down to about 10 main ideas without delving too deeply into specifics.

The Arab and Muslim representatives emerged making positive comments about progress. Privately, they decided to unite and drafted points they agreed should be in the plan. Trump promised them that their concerns would be addressed and that he would put pressure on Netanyahu, including that he would prevent Israel from annexing the West Bank.

Witkoff and Rubio had several meetings with the Arab leaders to incorporate their ideas into the final draft.

Qatar pressed for a clear path to end the war and a peace process that includes a Palestinian state. Egypt said it wouldn’t help secure Gaza without a bigger role for the Palestinian Authority and a U.N. resolution backing the plan.

The Arab countries also wanted a commitment to a full withdrawal by Israeli troops and a guarantee the West Bank wouldn’t be annexed. They also suggested Hamas be required to lay down its arms rather than destroy them to save face. They left in the middle of last week feeling reassured they had the hoped-for impact.

Netanyahu was set to meet with Trump the following Monday at the White House, and the U.S. team shifted to getting Israel on board.

Israel, worried about constraining its ability to intervene in the Gaza Strip and wanting to head off a Palestinian state, was anxious to push its own amendments, which ended up undoing many of the Arab changes.

Witkoff, Kushner, Dermer and Netanyahu worked through the weekend, bouncing from Kushner’s apartment to Witkoff’s room and the Israelis’ place at the Loews Regency in exhausting meetings that lasted for hours. The officials would repeatedly travel up and down floors to discuss new ideas or debrief on conversations with foreign leaders.

Netanyahu canceled several planned appearances in New York to take part. “I had hoped to be in person with you tonight,” Netanyahu, who looked pale and tired, said in a video that was played in his stead at the summit of the Jewish News Syndicate, a conservative outlet. “But circumstances have caught up with us.”

U.A.E. Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahyan stopped by for around an hour to meet Netanyahu at the Loews, where he made it clear it was time to end the conflict.