American mediators followed representatives of Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, October 9, from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the negotiations to end the war in the Gaza Strip were concluding, back to Tel Aviv, to press Israel to follow Donald Trump's wishes and formally ratify the deal. The envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, attended the cabinet meeting, which ultimately approved the plan late Thursday night into Friday.

Starting Monday, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators took turns – never crossing paths behind the scenes – meeting in a large square office with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators. As a show of good faith, Hamas began gathering the bodies of dead hostages in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. But ultimately, each side merely presented its demands. "They agreed on almost nothing," lamented a source close to the negotiations, who at the time feared a deal would not be reached before Sunday.

Then, on Wednesday, Witkoff and Kushner joined the top mediators in Egypt who had been urgently dispatched: the Qatari prime minister and the head of Turkish intelligence. The Americans focused on the Israeli representative, Ron Dermer. Netanyahu's trusted envoy had helped scuttle the previous cease-fire in January and had nearly severed ties with the Qatari mediator. "Bringing Kushner to the final round of negotiations was a brilliant move to neutralize Dermer's defined role of foiling every chance of ending the war," wrote, in a post on X, former Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin, who has conducted unofficial dialogue with Hamas and the US administration since 2024.

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