Still, Witkoff maintained Friday that he was hopeful the ceasefire could be restored. “There have been signs,” he said. “The Israelis going in [to Gaza] is: 1. in some respects unfortunate, 2. and in some respects falls into the ‘had to be’ bucket.”
Witkoff recalled warning Arab leaders during a gathering in Doha last week that Hamas’s “completely inappropriate” response to the bridge proposal “was going to result in some sort of military action.”
“I did not know before the Israelis went in,” he clarified, appearing to contradict claims by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier this week that Israel had consulted the US before ending the Gaza ceasefire.
Nonetheless, Witkoff insisted that “We may be able to use this to get Hamas to be a whole lot more reasonable.” The Trump envoy later revealed that the sides “are talking again” since the Israeli strikes.
“We’re in a negotiation right now to maybe stop some of these Israeli strikes and maybe finish this conflict with dialogue,” he said. If I don’t have a feeling that we can accomplish that, why would I waste my time?”
For his part, the senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that the talks have been stuck since the IDF renewed airstrikes.
