Witkoff: Netanyahu’s phone call with Qatari PM was ‘pivotal’ step in reaching Gaza deal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology to his Qatari counterpart for the Israeli strike in Doha on September 9 was a crucial step in the process toward a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, US special envoy Steve Witkoff says on CBS’s 60 Minutes” program.
Netanyahu phoned Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani while visiting Trump at the White House on September 29, to apologize for targeting a meeting of the Hamas terror group’s political leadership in Doha.
The strike failed to kill any of the key Hamas leaders it had been targeting and led to Qatar refusing to continue serving as a mediator between Israel and Hamas during negotiations over the Gaza war.
Shortly after Netanyahu apologized to al-Thani under Trump’s watchful gaze, the White House released its plan for ending the war in Gaza, and said both Israel and the Arab world had accepted it.
Netanyahu’s apology to al-Thani was “pivotal,” Witkoff tells 60 Minutes, in an interview alongside fellow Trump adviser, and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
“It was the linchpin that got us to the next place. It was really, really important that it happened.”
Asked whether Trump had to push Netanyahu to apologize, Kushner says that the Israeli premier “wasn’t [going to] do anything, or say anything, or agree to anything he didn’t feel comfortable with,” and that he knew that the apology was “what needed to be done at that moment to make peace.”
“The apology needed to happen. It just did,” chimes in Witkoff. “We were not moving forward without that apology. And the president said to him, ‘People apologize.’”
Kushner adds that the phone call between Netanyahu and al-Thani led to the formation of a “trilateral mechanism between the countries which didn’t happen before.”
“I believe over time Israel and Qatar could actually turn out to be incredible allies in the region to advance things forward,” he suggests.
