I think many will find this post intersting if they want to know behind the scenes details:
October 9, 2025
A first short note on some thoughts this morning.
Gershon Baskin
This is definitely a morning for celebration. The war is ending. The killing and destruction will stop. The Israeli hostages will be coming home – the living and the deceased. For Palestinians, there will be celebrations with the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Gaza. Israelis and Palestinians will be able to breathe again.
First, we all have to thank President Trump and his emissary Steve Witkoff, and of course Jared Kushner, who helped to put the full court press on Israel and on Hamas. Trump and Witkoff made sure that the Qatari Prime Minister, the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence, and the Turkish head of Intelligence were all together for the final push. This was a brilliant move. Trump locked Netanyahu into the agreement and the Qataris, Egyptians and Turks locked Hamas into the agreement.
There are still details that we don’t know but what is important is that this agreement is a declaration of the end of the war – not a temporary ceasefire. There are guarantees that the war will not be renewed once Hamas releases all of the hostages. We don’t know the exact details of those guarantees – I had made some suggestions to the US and Hamas negotiators, but I don’t know at this time what has been concluded. We also don’t know for sure the names of the Palestinian prisoners who will be released and what are the terms of their release.
What we should know is that this deal could have done a long time ago. Hamas agreed to all of the same terms in September 2024 in what became known as the “Three Weeks Deal” that I had received in writing and voice message in Arabic and in English. But at that point the response of the Israeli negotiators was that “the Prime Minister did not agree to end the war”. Even though the “Three Week Deal” proposal landed on the desk of President Biden, his person in charge, Bret McGurk, refused to sway from the bad deal that he was negotiating. I met with members of the American negotiating team in October 2024 and they were as frustrated as I was in their inability to convince Biden and Biden’s people to look seriously at the deal on the table. The Qataris invited me to Doha in October 2024 and I presented to them the deal that Hamas agreed to, which they were fully aware of but they said without the American adoption of the plan, nothing could be done, because the obstacle was Israel, not Hamas. That is the same message I received from the Egyptian intelligence – Hamas was ready for a deal to release all of the hostages, not to govern Gaza and longer and to end the war. But Israel was not ready. On December 26, 2024 I met with Ronen Bar in his office in the Shin Bet headquarters. In that meeting, three weeks before Trump entered the White House, I was requested not to use my back channels, because “in three weeks there will be a ceasefire deal”. Trump told Netanyahu that he wants a ceasefire before he enters the White House, and Ronen Bar knew it would happen and it did on January 19, 2025. To me it was clear that President Biden projected American weakness while President Trump projects American power. From that moment, on December 26, 2024 it was clear to me that the only way that the war would come to an end is when President Trump makes the decision that it has to end. From that time, my primary efforts were to communicated with Steve Witkoff and find a way of working a back channel between the American side and Hamas – knowing that the negotiation did not have to be directly with the Israeli side. The Israeli side would accept whatever Trump forced them to accept. In December 2024, Samer Sinijlawi heard that Witkoff would be speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi. He suggested that we invest the money to go there and to stakeout Witkoff in order to make first contact. We did that and we managed to speak with him, exchange cards and we gave him an article that Samer and I authored together. That investment paid off completely.
Jumping ahead – after hours of working the back channel, on September 8, 2025 Hamas received from the Qatari Prime Minister the American proposal that I assisted in drafting together with Hamas negotiators. I was on the telephone with the American side at the same hour that the Qataris were presenting to Hamas the final American proposal at 10:00 pm on September 8. I was told by the American side that Hamas planned to spend September 9 discussing the proposal and getting clarifications from the Americans, through me and the Qataris on issues such as the lines of the Israeli withdrawal, the nature of the guarantees that the war would not be renewed when Hamas releases all of the hostages. Then Israel bombed the home of Khalil al Haya and that phase of the negotiations ended. On September 10 one of the Hamas negotiators contacted me and said that the whole leadership survived the attacked and that the Qataris had instructed them to not go out and not to use their telephones at all. Hamas was convinced that the attack could not have happened without the agreement of Trump. Despite the American denials, Hamas no longer trusted that Trump and the Americans were working in good faith. The proposed American guarantees were no longer relevant. I was requested by the Americans to tell the Hamas leadership that the Americans had nothing to do with the attack and that the US and President Trump were still committed to reaching an agreement to end the war.
Hamas’s messages to me were that they had no faith in the Americans because Israel could not have attacked in Doha without the American agreement. On September 10 at 1:22 am Witkoff sent me the following message: “We had zero to do with this. They (the Israelis) have apologized to us. Their statement confirms this. And the President’s Truth Social post attests to it.”
During the period between the Israeli attack in Doha and September 19, I was working on ways to get back to the point where we were negotiating the end of the war, with all of the details. Hamas was in a paralysis mode and did not know what to do or how to get back to talks about ending the war.
On September 19, in the late evening Witkoff called me and said “we have a plan”. We had a long conversation and I supported what the Americans were planning and I made a few suggestions on how to get Hamas on board. I was requested to convince the Hamas leadership that Trump was serious and wants the war to end. Throughout the last months I have been in contact with 8 members of the Hamas leadership outside of Gaza. Three of them engaged with me in discussions. I did not make suggestions regarding the Israeli side because for over a year I believed that if President Trump decides that the war has to end, Trump will force Netanyahu into the agreement. That is exactly what happened.
What we don’t know still is a lot of very important information. I have been in discussions regarding all of the issues, but I was not in Sharm el Sheikh and I don’t know what has been decided and what still needs to be decided. But the most important thing at this time is the declaration by both sides that the war is over and it will not be renewed. The hostages and prisoners will be freed in the coming days. Israel will begin to withdraw.
Regarding the Hamas weapons, the discussions and proposals were that Hamas would turn over their weapons (those that have the ability to kill a number of people at the same time – not necessarily every rifle) to a new Palestinian security force, perhaps together with Egyptian support. Hamas would not surrender its weapons to Israel, but they could to a Palestinian security force. I don’t know what has been decided.
The new government in Gaza – this has to be a Palestinian government and not a neo-colonial mechanism which the Palestinians do not control. The names of independent Gazans with a public profile have been given to the Americans and also to other international and Arab players involved with the day after and the reconstruction of Gaza. The names that Samer Sinijlawi and I submitted to these important players were Gazan civil society leaders that we met with several times on zoom. They drafted a letter and signed it to President Trump that I delivered to Witkoff for the President stating that they were willing to play a role in the governance of Gaza. We don’t know how this new government will be formed and when it will take over. Hamas agreed from the outset to this kind of government, even from last year. We don’t know if Mahmoud Abbas will ask Dr. Nasser Elkidwa to play a role in the governance of Gaza – something that he has said that he is ready to do.
We don’t know which Palestinian prisoners will be freed in the deal and where they will be freed to. The option of freeing those who are considered by Israel to be the most dangerous to be deported may have been agreed to – we don’t know yet. I spent a lot of time and efforts to provide the Americans with information about Marwan Barghouthi. I sent the opinions of about 20 very important Israelis to the Americans about their opinion – most were in favor of releasing Barghouthi – but some very significant Israelis were opposed. Those who were in favor spoke about the positive role that Barghouthi could play in moving the conflict toward a renewed peace process. Those who were opposed believed that Barghouthi would not play that role.
In conclusion of these first thoughts: President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Steve Witkoff is a deal maker and without Witkoff none of this would have happened. Witkoff speaks for the President and everyone knows it. Jared Kusher’s role at this point was crucial because in the near future Ron Dermer will be working for Kushner and not for Netanyahu. 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. The Turkish head of Intelligence is very close to Witkoff and to Hamas and the Turkish intensive role was crucial in putting the pressure on Hamas to agree to the deal and not to walk away from the table.
At 2:00 am all of the participants in the negotiations entered a large room with tables and chairs set up in a square. The Israeli delegation sat directly across from the Hamas delegation. This was the first time in history that official Israelis and officials from Hamas sat in the same room. The deal was signed and now we have to wait for its full implementations. And now we can begin to breathe again.
