![\"US](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/photo-2025-10-09-16-27-51.jpg?c=original&q=w_1280,c_fill\/f_avif\")
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\n As the Israeli government met late Thursday evening to hammer out the details of a high-stakes ceasefire resolution, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner joined the meeting and discussed the merits of the deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow ministers.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to an Israeli official briefed on the meeting, Witkoff shared his personal story about his son, who died from an overdose in 2011, and presented the case for forgiveness.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI had a child who died from an overdose, and I wanted to kill the family of the person who gave him the dose. But when I got to court, I saw his parents, who were so ashamed and asked for forgiveness, and I forgave them,\u201d Witkoff said, according to the Israeli official.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Israeli official told CNN Witkoff was responding to an exchange with Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right Israeli minister who proclaimed that he would not support the proposed deal due to the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN reached out to the White House and the State Department for comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Israeli source described the discussion as beginning with Ben Gvir suggesting that, if the US were in Israel\u2019s position, it would not accept a deal that included the release of prisoners, whom he called \u201cterrorists\u201d and \u201cbaby killers, rapists of women.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou would never release them in the United States. I appreciate the hard work you do and the help you give Israel, but let\u2019s be real – you would not support such a deal,\u201d Ben Gvir asserted.\n <\/p>\n
\n When Witkoff made his personal account of forgiveness, Ben Gvir replied: \u201cThat\u2019s the difference – those who murdered us on October 7 do not ask for forgiveness. Their families are proud of it. They want to kill Jews.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Ben Gvir, who leads Israel\u2019s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, has consistently opposed ceasefire and hostage release deals for Gaza. He has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism in Israel.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Israeli government met late Thursday evening to hammer out the details of a high-stakes ceasefire resolution,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77144,99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-291028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-hnk","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115347963981601788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291028","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=291028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}