US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff said Friday that he doesn’t believe Hamas is “ideologically intractable” and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “well-motivated” but operating against Israeli public opinion that prioritizes freeing the remaining hostages from Gaza over the destruction of Hamas, APA reports, citing The Times of Israel.
In an hour-and-a-half-long interview chocked-full of headlines, Witkoff discussed the motivations of Israel, Hamas and Qatar in the ongoing Gaza war; offered an assertive defense of Doha against critics questioning the Islamist country’s motivations; acknowledged his concern about the Gaza war’s potential for destabilizing countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; suggested that Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa could be a changed man since his days in Al-Qaeda; revealed new details about his successful January brokering of the current Gaza ceasefire’s first phase; and insisted that the Iranian nuclear threat can be solved diplomatically.
“What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there till the end of time. They want to rule Gaza, and that’s unacceptable. We had to know that… What they want is unacceptable,” Witkoff said.
“What’s acceptable to us is [that] they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit… be involved politically,” he continued.
“But… we can’t have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won’t be acceptable to Israel. Then we’ll just have the same exact experiences that every five, 10, 15 years we’re going to have another October 7.”
Pressed on what it’s like negotiating with Hamas, Witkoff acknowledged that he’s not talking to the terror group directly and that he uses Qatar as a mediator.
The US envoy did sign off on Trump’s hostage envoy Adam Boehler holding secret direct talks with Hamas officials earlier this year. However, Washington abandoned those talks after they were leaked by Israel, which learned about them after the fact and fumed over Boehler negotiating on its behalf, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel earlier this month.
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