(JNS) U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that before Hamas backed out he had believed a hostage deal was within reach.
“I was in Doha. I met with many of the Arab leaders at the Arab summit. I thought we had a deal. An acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that’s me getting duped. But I thought we were there, and evidently we weren’t,” he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream.”
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“I certainly hope we get everybody back to the table and get the hostages home,” he added.
Witkoff placed the blame for the collapse of negotiations squarely on Hamas, emphasizing unwavering U.S. support for Israel.
“So this is on Hamas,” he said. “The United States stands with the State of Israel. That’s a 100% commitment, and we’ve expressed that. Hamas had every opportunity to demilitarize, to accept the bridging proposal that would have given us a 40- or 50-day ceasefire where we could have discussed demilitarization and a final truce. There were all kinds of opportunities to do that, and they elected not to.”
He stressed that the war was a direct consequence of Hamas’s actions.
“And this becomes the alternative. And it is unfortunate,” Witkoff continued. “Do I think that we would be amenable to a reach-out from Hamas? Of course we would be. No different than in the Russian conflict. We want to end the killing. But we need to be clear who the aggressor is here, and that is Hamas.”
