{"id":133491,"date":"2025-08-10T04:40:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T04:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133491\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T04:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T04:40:18","slug":"witkoff-reportedly-meets-qatar-pm-on-comprehensive-deal-amid-scramble-to-stop-gaza-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133491\/","title":{"rendered":"Witkoff reportedly meets Qatar PM on comprehensive deal amid scramble to stop Gaza takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss an end to the Gaza war and the release of all 50 remaining hostages, the Axios<\/a> news site reported, amid an apparent flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at heading off an Israeli plan to expand its Gaza offensive and occupy Gaza City.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ynet cited sources affiliated with Hamas as saying that the US, Qatar and Egypt were mediating in intense negotiations with Israel to prevent it from taking over the entire Gaza Strip, after the cabinet decided overnight Thursday-Friday to conquer Gaza City<\/a> and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel\u2019s intention was to temporarily take control of all of Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hostage-ceasefire proposal on the table includes an end to the war, full Israeli withdrawal, demilitarization of Palestinian armed groups, exile of Hamas\u2019s military leaders and the establishment of a new civilian authority for Gaza, the sources were cited as saying, adding that Hamas was prepared to resume the fighting if the offer were rejected.<\/p>\n

The two reports<\/a> came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to endorse Israeli designs for Gaza while blaming the impasse in the truce-hostage talks in part on France\u2019s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n

Witkoff and al-Thani met in Ibiza as Qatar and the US hoped to present a comprehensive true-hostage deal proposal to Israel and Hamas within the next two weeks, Axios said, citing two sources familiar with the meeting. The White House did not comment.<\/p>\n

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An Israeli cabinet minister cited by the news site said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer informed the cabinet on Thursday that Washington was working on an \u201cEnd Game\u201d proposal for the war. It was unclear from the report what the proposal entailed.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Qatar\u2019s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani speaks during a press conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam (not pictured) in Doha, Qatar, on June 24, 2025. (Karim JAAFAR \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Dermer was said to have brought up the \u201cEnd Game\u201d plan before the cabinet approved the Gaza City takeover plan, with Dermer voting in favor, according to Hebrew media.<\/p>\n

An Israeli official involved in the negotiations was quoted by Axios as saying that \u201cthe gap between Israel and Hamas regarding ending the war is huge, so talking of a comprehensive deal is likely to be pointless at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was still no harm in the US and Israel reaching an \u201cEnd Game\u201d plan on their own, the official was quoted as saying: \u201cOur war is with Hamas, not with the US.\u201d<\/p>\n

Axios also cited a senior Israeli official as saying that far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich voted against the plan approved by the security cabinet because Netanyahu indicated expanded military operations in Gaza would be halted if truce-hostage talks were renewed.<\/p>\n

The decision to expand the fighting has sparked fierce criticism at home<\/a> and abroad<\/a> over concern that the move would endanger the hostages and deepen Gaza\u2019s humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on Saturday, some 20 Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, condemned the decision as \u201ca flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli\u2026 in contravention of international legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (R) speak with US envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff (L), during the premier\u2019s visit to Washington, DC on July 7, 2025. (Avi Ohayon\/GPO)<\/p>\n

Visiting Israel last week, Witkoff told<\/a> hostage families that the US wanted to finish the war, not expand, and was no longer interested in \u201cpiecemeal\u201d truce-hostage deals like those previously discussed. Hostage families have also assailed the partial hostage deals as needlessly protracting their loved ones\u2019 suffering and warned that the plan to conquer Gaza City endangered the hostages.<\/p>\n

Rubio blames impasse in talks on Macron\u2019s Palestine recognition<\/p>\n

Rubio said ceasefire-hostage talks with Hamas broke down the day French President Emmanuel Macron announced<\/a> plans to recognize Palestinian statehood, which the top US diplomat said emboldened the terror group.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he\u2019s going to recognize the Palestinian state,\u201d said Rubio in an interview<\/a> broadcast Friday with the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network. \u201cAnd then you have other people come forward, other countries say, \u2018well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we\u2019re going to recognize a Palestinian state.\u2019 If I\u2019m Hamas, I\u2019d basically conclude, let\u2019s not do a ceasefire\u2026 because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron announced on July 25 that France would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, triggering a wave of similar declarations by other countries, including Britain and Canada.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) listens as US President Donald Trump addresses a press conference during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague on June 25, 2025. (NICOLAS TUCAT \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Also on July 25, Israel and the US recalled<\/a> their negotiators from truce-hostage talks in Doha after receiving what they deemed an unsatisfactory response from Hamas to a proposal for a partial truce-hostage deal. The talks have since stalled.<\/p>\n

Despite Rubio\u2019s claim, the negotiations fell apart hours before Macron\u2019s announcement, with Hamas giving its last response to the mediators over a day beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo those messages, while largely symbolic in their minds, actually have made it harder to get peace and harder to achieve a deal with Hamas. They feel emboldened,\u201d Rubio said, adding that he agrees with Netanyahu\u2019s accusation that recognition of a Palestinian state rewards the terror group for the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Rubio also rejected as a fiction the country being recognized by France and the other nations: \u201cWhat these people talk about isn\u2019t real.\u00a0 They can\u2019t define the borders or who\u2019s going to run it\u2026 And if it\u2019s going to be run by Hamas, you\u2019re going to be right back into war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as Hamas exists\u2026 there will never be peace in Gaza,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cTheir reason for existing is that they want to destroy Israel.\u00a0 They want to drive every Jew out of the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives for talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not in picture) at Villa Borsig, the guesthouse of the German Foreign Ministry, in Berlin, Germany, July 23, 2025. (RALF HIRSCHBERGER \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, what Israel needs to do for Israel\u2019s security will be determined by Israel,\u201d he said, when asked about Israel\u2019s plan to take over Gaza City.<\/p>\n

Separately, US President Donald Trump was asked by the press at the White House on Friday about reports<\/a> that Somaliland, a breakaway coastal enclave in Somalia, had expressed an interest in taking in Gazans if he recognized Somaliland\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking into that right now. Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we\u2019re working on that right now,\u201d Trump responded, avoiding a direct answer.<\/p>\n

Agencies and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-133491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115002633602066736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}