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CNN
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When Qatar’s prime minister appeared on Wednesday to declare that a hostage ceasefire in Gaza had finally been reached, representatives of the two American administrations were waiting in Doha to enjoy the victory.
The cooperation between the two sides was “nearly unprecedented,” a senior Biden administration official said after the deal was struck, made possible by a rare intersection of interests between the adversaries, who both saw an opportunity following Trump’s victory. He said it had become.
Brett McGuirk, President Joe Biden’s longtime Middle East negotiator, has been stationed in the Qatari capital for weeks in hopes of a final deal. Recently, President-elect Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, also joined the final push.
Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Witkoff have been working across the Middle East to push the deal beyond the line, including a key meeting between Mr. Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, in which Mr. McGuirk also participated by phone. The meeting was divided. While McGuirk was primarily focused on the deal, Witkoff was in a position to emphasize Trump’s desire to have a deal completed by Inauguration Day.
After the deal was announced, both the incoming and outgoing presidents took full credit, a sign of the continued toxic relationship between the two.
But ultimately, the deal will allow both Biden and Trump to claim victory. This is the last piece of good news for a president who is poised to leave office with the lowest approval ratings of his term. And it confirms the true beliefs of the president-elect, who vowed that “all hell will break out” in Gaza if the hostages are not released by his second inauguration.
The reality of who is responsible for this deal is complex. Biden administration officials said momentum toward a deal began before the election, after separate ceasefires were reached between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The contours of the final deal with Hamas are similar to a proposal that Biden first announced in May but was unable to complete.
Speaking at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion earlier this month, Witkoff described Biden’s team as the “tip of the spear” in negotiations.
“No one takes pride in being a writer. We’re completely results-oriented. Let’s send them home,” Witkoff, a former real estate investor, said at the time.
Still, after the deal was struck, even Biden officials acknowledged that Trump’s inauguration deadline was the driving force behind the final success after months of failure. And Trump, who was monitoring developments from Florida, quickly declared the deal was only made possible by his victory.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could only have been achieved as a result of the historic victory in November,” he wrote on social media.
Biden was more cautious.
“It’s a very nice afternoon,” Biden said Wednesday from Cross Hall at the White House. The hall was close to where members of Trump’s incoming team were meeting with members of the Biden administration in the West Wing to discuss national security issues.
The president, who has decades of high-level foreign policy experience, called the negotiations that led to the ceasefire agreement “one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever been through.” He said his team has been “in concerted conversations” with Trump officials.
But as he left the podium, the president became irritated when asked whether he or Trump deserved the credit for Wednesday’s deal.
“Is that a joke?” he said before walking away.
In the final stages of the 2024 presidential campaign, few in the White House thought a hostage deal would be completed before the election results were known.
U.S. and European officials say they are waiting to see which U.S. president Mr. Netanyahu chooses to negotiate with, keeping his options open for any outcome and biding his time.
Hours of angry phone calls between the White House and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office have made little progress, and even the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could immediately undermine the deal. That never happened.
Mr. Trump’s victory, which was widely seen in the White House as the outcome Mr. Netanyahu had hoped for, was far from what Mr. Biden’s aides had hoped for. However, some people found new opportunities in the loss.
During his post-election meeting with President Trump in front of a fire raging in the Oval Office, Mr. Biden asked his successor in a few months to “work with the administration team to rescue the hostages from Gaza.” did.
In conversations between the incoming and outgoing national security team, Biden’s aides said that no matter what conflicts there were between the two, there were no friendly conversations in the Oval Office. Regardless, they remained bitterly conflicted and made it clear that the hostage issue is where they must address. together.
The following week, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in a statement the following week: “We are committed to a bipartisan, common cause to do everything in our power to mobilize the full power of the United States to secure the release of hostages, both living and dead.” We are ready to cooperate with the next team that aims to achieve this goal.” November election.
During a fireside conversation, Biden and Trump agreed that the hostage crisis could and should be resolved before the transfer of power on January 20, according to people familiar with the meeting. An agreement was reached.
The timing was perfect for both of us.
Trump’s advisers have long felt that if a deal is reached after Trump wins but before he takes office, he would take credit for it. It will also be at the forefront of his mind as he begins his second term focused squarely on fulfilling campaign promises on immigration, tariffs and repealing Biden-era regulations.
For Biden, finally securing the hostage deal he spent more than a quarter of his presidency solidifying is a sign that the time, energy, and political capital lost to that end will be justified. I’ll have to prove it.
And with their blessings, the opposing sides last week embarked on a final effort to accomplish what had long seemed impossible.
Late Night and Final Request
A key sticking point that has emerged over the past few months, according to government officials, is Hamas’ refusal to acknowledge how many hostages it still holds and to identify which ones to release as part of the first phase of the deal. It is said that he refused to do so. .
U.S. officials, through intermediaries, made it clear to Hamas that the deal could not happen without a complete list of hostages to be released as part of the deal.
The pressure seemed to be working. By late December, Hamas had agreed to provide the list, accelerating negotiations for the final stages of an agreement.
McGuirk remained in the Middle East, continuing to work on finalizing the complex agreement, including finalizing the order of how and when prisoners would be released.
Negotiators from the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt holed up in a building in Doha, talking until 3 a.m. with Hamas officials to finalize a frustratingly elusive deal to end the conflict. I tried.
Hamas raised a number of last-minute demands during the final negotiations. However, the United States and Israel resolutely pressed Hamas to agree.
Implementation of the agreement could begin as early as Sunday, officials said.
As the reality of the deal became more realistic, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by phone with his American counterpart. His first call was to thank Trump and arrange a meeting in Washington. She then called Biden and “thanked him as well,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
