President Donald Trump has turned to two of his closest confidants, son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate executive Steve Witkoff, to execute a fragile Gaza peace deal, relying on personal chemistry and business instincts over traditional diplomacy to halt the war and free hostages.
While Trump has taken personal ownership of the initiative, the framework was developed with input from Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, who played a key coordinating role in the talks. In the final stretch, Trump leaned on Kushner, his former senior adviser and architect of the Abraham Accords, whose network across the region helped bring skeptical players on board.
Trump’s foreign policy runs through a small circle of confidants he trusts and can reach directly. Rather than rely on the State Department, he favors personal relationships, a formula that produced the Abraham Accords in 2020 and is again shaping high-stakes talks over Gaza’s future. Still, Kushner and Witkoff are hardly traditional diplomats, a factor that likely plays a significant role in Trump’s appointment of them to lead the Gaza talks.
“He’s skeptical of career diplomats,” said Andrew Miller, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs from 2022 to 2024. “He thinks businesspeople, deal-makers, are better negotiators.”
Lianne Pollak-David, who was an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and National Security Council and took part in Israel’s past negotiations with the Palestinians, said Trump’s approach fits the region. “People here respond to relationships and results, not protocol,” she said. “He understands that.”
According to senior United States officials involved in the talks, the framework for the Gaza plan took shape in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The officials said that during those sessions, Trump’s envoys worked closely with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to “wordsmith and tighten” what became a 20-point document for peace in the Middle East.
The same official told reporters that Witkoff and Kushner worked with various Middle Eastern countries and Arab leaders on the document to “tailor it” and engaged in several meetings during the UNGA as they worked to finalize the proposal.
Trump’s team drew on elements from prior hostage-release efforts and folded them into a broader political plan, pulling “principles from multiple negotiations,” according to the official. The plan was then harmonized with input from Egypt, Turkey, and the UAE and ultimately presented by Trump during a closed-door session with regional leaders in New York.
That meeting marked a turning point. Trump, guided by Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, dropped his earlier talk of population transfers and his “Gaza Riviera” proposal and accepted that planning for Gaza’s “day after” was essential to achieving a ceasefire. “Once we detected that Hamas had shifted, that holding the hostages was becoming a liability, not an asset, the conversation moved fast,” a senior U.S. official said.
That shift followed weeks of increasing tension with Israel, including a controversial strike in Qatar that killed a Qatari service member and angered Washington, giving Trump new leverage to push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward concessions. Under the current terms, Hamas fighters who surrender their weapons and renounce any claim to governance in the Palestinian territories will be spared, a move that drew quiet resistance from within Netanyahu’s coalition but ultimately secured U.S. backing for the deal.
“The one dynamic that I think a lot of people don’t recognize or ignore is that when the U.S. is seen as applying pressure on an Israeli government at the appropriate times, it makes it easier for Arab and Muslim countries to apply pressure on Hamas,” Miller said, adding that this dynamic is part of the reason the latest framework is moving forward after months of stalemate.
When the Washington Examiner asked Trump on Thursday why Kushner joined the process so late, Trump said it was by design.
“Jared is a very smart guy,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “He did the Abraham Accords, which I love the way that sounds, and it was a great thing. I put Jared in because he knows the region, knows the people, knows the players.”
Trump added that Kushner was part of what he called a “very smart group” that included Witkoff and other advisers working with regional governments.
Senior U.S. officials said they briefed Arab ministers during UNGA, then worked through the following weekend in New York to prepare a plan for the Oval Office and to repair relations with Qatar. “We worked around the clock to put together a plan we could present to the president on Monday morning,” one official said. “From there, we agreed to convene in Sharm el Sheikh with Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt to start detailed work with Israel and the mediators.”
Officials said the plan is divided into two stages. The first stage of the plan centers on the release of roughly 20 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, expected late Sunday or early Monday Eastern time. Under the terms outlined so far, Israel will pause its operations in Gaza and reposition its forces behind an agreed but undisclosed line. In return, it will free 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and another 1,700 detainees arrested after Oct. 7.
Trump said on Thursday he plans to travel to the Middle East and, according to people briefed on the plans, may meet the freed captives in person. Reports from the Times of Israel suggest he could also address the Knesset, though that remains uncertain.
Trump also previewed the possibility of speaking at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, being included on his agenda, but did not answer whether he would visit Gaza as well.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] asked me to speak at the Knesset,” he said. “I’ve agreed to, if they, if they would like me to, I will do it. It’s the first time a president has ever done that. So that makes it very interesting, right?”
The remains of about 28 hostages believed to have died in Hamas custody will also be transferred to Israel, though the handover timetable is still being finalized.
The second stage would establish a longer-term ceasefire framework, including the decommissioning of heavy weapons, installation of a technocratic administration in Gaza, and a phased Israeli redeployment tied to measurable security conditions. A top U.S. official described it as a “trust and verify” model in which progress on demilitarization would trigger further Israeli withdrawals.
Implementation remains fragile. “There is still a lot of ways this can go wrong,” a senior U.S. official said. “We are staying on top of the details to make sure everyone fulfills their obligations and that misunderstandings are quickly adjudicated.”
To manage security, officials said U.S. Central Command will help form a joint control center and coordinate an international stabilization force to replace the Israel Defense Forces along a designated line. “No U.S. troops are intended to go into Gaza,” a top U.S. official said, adding that CENTCOM would integrate Egyptian, Qatari, Turkish, and Emirati elements and keep all sides informed. “Locations are being worked through, but the objective is oversight, deconfliction, and compliance.”
Miller cautioned that the plan’s success hinges on Trump’s sustained involvement. “If Trump is prepared to apply pressure and offer reassurances on both sides, there’s a chance this could translate into a more durable peace,” he said. “But if he loses focus, it will stall.”
Witkoff’s path to diplomacy has been unconventional. Before he was appointed as special envoy, he was best known for his real estate ventures and personal ties to Trump. His limited foreign policy experience has drawn scrutiny before: During earlier talks with Iran, he misjudged the political sensitivity around uranium enrichment, forcing the administration to walk back his position. Diplomats at the time described his comments as “naïve” and said they briefly set back progress with European allies.
After a meeting with Russian officials earlier this year, Witkoff was also criticized for echoing Kremlin talking points. Several foreign policy veterans said he appeared to “accept Putin’s word at face value,” a reflection, they argued, of his inexperience navigating complex state-to-state negotiations.
Still, Miller noted that this time Witkoff appears to have a stronger support system. “He’s not operating in the dark,” Miller said, pointing out that career officials with deep regional experience, including a retired Army colonel who worked on the Abraham Accords, have been advising him behind the scenes. “Those inputs are being made available to him, and that’s part of the reason this hasn’t gone off the rails.”
Senior U.S. officials said they were invited to an Israeli Cabinet meeting to present the plan. “Both parties were making compromises,” one official said. “You could feel relief in the room, and also fear about what comes next.” Another official cautioned against reading too much into public posturing. “Public statements matter less than what people say privately and what they actually do,” the official said.
Pollak-David said the breakthrough reflects both political pressure and timing. “This plan has been cooking for a while,” she said. “The war couldn’t go on. The hostages had to come home. And President Trump is the only figure who could bring all the players together to agree to a plan.”
She added that the coming days will test whether that momentum can hold. “The challenge now is trust,” Pollak-David said. “Each side needs to believe the other will deliver, and that the U.S. will stay engaged long enough to enforce it.”
Still, those involved in past negotiations emphasized that nothing is guaranteed. Hamas could yet sabotage the exchange or stall implementation. “It’s an agreement on paper,” Pollak-David said. “We don’t know until the hostages are home.”
Yet if this deal holds, it could mark more than just the end of a war. For Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff, it would be proof that diplomacy can be brokered not through institutions but through instinct, and that an unconventional team of deal-makers just might succeed where traditional diplomacy has stalled.
But Miller cautions that Trump’s brand of personal diplomacy may not outlast him. “There’s not going to be another Trump,” he said. “You can’t build a foreign policy around relationships that exist only because one man is in office.”
