Kushner said a key message to Israeli leaders has been the need to help Palestinians ’thrive and do better’
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff have revealed new details about the negotiations that led to the current cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In a wide-ranging interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired on Oct. 19, the two discussed Trump’s direct involvement in shaping a 20-point peace framework and the continuing challenges of rebuilding Gaza under the postwar agreement.
The interview follows a cease-fire deal that resulted in the release of all living Israeli hostages held by Hamas, while Israel released about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Despite Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes last week in response to alleged Hamas violations of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal and alleged breaches of the “yellow line” marking Israel’s agreed withdrawal limit on Oct. 20, both Trump and the IDF say the cease-fire is still in effect.
Witkoff and Kushner arrived in Israel on Oct. 20 to continue diplomatic efforts aimed at stabilizing the agreement, while Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to visit the country on Oct. 21.
Pragmatic Diplomacy and Qatar
In the “60 Minutes” interview, Kushner said that Trump’s foreign policy was rooted in “pragmatic realism” and making deals, while Witkoff said Trump’s leadership style allowed them to act decisively.
“He delegates well,” said Witkoff.
“He gave us a lot of authority to negotiate. He felt he understood the dynamics of it. We put him in the room. We explained it to him, I think thoroughly.”
After the Israeli air strike on Doha, Qatar, on Sept. 9, which Kushner said “violated a lot of the trust” from the Israeli side, he and Witkoff decided that a new approach was needed.
The duo viewed the incident as a setback, but also as an opportunity to rethink their strategy.
“We decided to take the previous cease-fire proposal and then the end-of-war proposal that we’d been working on, and merge it together into one document, and then focus on seeing if we can get the Qataris and the Arab world onboard,” Kushner said.
The plan was presented to and backed by Trump, who urged them to push hard to align the Arab world before bringing Israel on board to reshape the negotiations.
