US envoy Steve Witkoff felt ‘betrayed’ by Israeli attack on Hamas in Qatar
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US envoy Steve Witkoff says the Israeli strike had a metastasizing effect as the Qataris were critical to the negotiation.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - US envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s chief negotiator on the Middle East, has said that he felt “betrayed” when Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas negotiators
In a CBS interview alongside Mr Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law who worked with Mr Witkoff on the brokering of a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the presidential envoy said he learned of the Sept 9 attack in Doha the morning after it happened.
Qatar is a key US ally and acted as mediator in the push to end the Gaza war.
“I think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed,” Mr Witkoff told the CBS news programme 60 Minutes in excerpts released on Oct 17. The full interview is scheduled to air on Oct 19.
At the time, the strike halted the indirect negotiating process to end the fighting in the devastated Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“It had a metastasizing effect because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks,” Mr Witkoff said.
“We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them.”
Mr Trump wrote on social media at the time that the decision to conduct the Doha air raid came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel and Hamas ultimately accepted a 20-point peace plan presented by Mr Trump that called for hostage and prisoner releases and a ceasefire after two years of deadly conflict.
Under pressure from Mr Trump during a White House visit this month, Mr Netanyahu called Qatar’s prime minister to apologise for the Doha strike. AFP
