Hamas says no negotiations until 602 prisoners released

In first, Witkoff says US looking to extend hostage deal’s current phase

Trump envoy will head to region this week, as agreement veers off original framework, but he insists it is still possible to get back on track with phase two negotiations

By Jacob Magid
and Lazar Berman
23 February 2025, 11:52 pm Edit
United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 30, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 30, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

US President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he would depart for the region in the coming days to try and negotiate an extension of the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which is supposed to conclude at the end of the week.

“We have to get an extension of phase one, and so I’ll be going into the region this week, probably Wednesday, to negotiate that,” Witkoff told CNN, later telling CBS that his trip will include stops in Qatar, Egypt, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

It was the first time that the Trump administration publicly declared its goal of extending phase one, amid mounting speculation that this was Israel’s preference, due to the aversion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to even hold negotiations on the terms of phase two, let alone implement them.

For his part, Witkoff has talked about his desire to implement the deal’s second phase, but he and other US officials have also increasingly defended Israel’s right to resume the war against Hamas, as disgust in Washington over the terror group has peaked.

“We’re hopeful that we have the proper time… to begin phase two, and finish it off and get more hostages released,” the top Trump aide said Sunday. “We will get to phase two… I think it’s going to happen.”

Phase two envisions Hamas releasing all remaining living hostages — at most 27 of 63 captives — in exchange for several thousand Palestinian security prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a permanent end to the war.

One of those 27 hostages is Edan Alexander, the last remaining American-Israeli hostage who is still believed to be alive in Gaza. Witkoff said the 20-year-old is “front and center” for the administration. “We’re going to be successful in getting Edan home.”

Asked whether he thinks Netanyahu wants to extend the ceasefire or resume fighting, Witkoff responded, “I believe the prime minister is well motivated. He wants to see hostages released — that’s for sure. He also wants to protect the State of Israel. So he’s got a red line,” he said.

The “red line” is Hamas having a future role in the governance of Gaza. “I would say at this point, for sure, they can’t be any part of governance in Gaza,” said Witkoff.

“As to existing [at all], I’d leave that detail to [Netanyahu],” he added, appearing to leave open the possibility for Hamas to remain in the Strip in some form, as far as the US is concerned.

The six-week first phase of the deal is slated to conclude on March 1, and the last group of living hostages slated for release in the stage were freed on Saturday.

The deal allows for the extension of the first phase so long as the sides are engaged in negotiations regarding the terms of the second phase. But Israel has stalled on starting those negotiations, with Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners threatening to collapse the government if the war does not resume.

Israel also decided to hold off on releasing over 600 Palestinian security prisoners, whom it was expected to release on Saturday, citing what it said were various Hamas violations, including the manner of its return of the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two young children Ariel and Kfir.

Hamas on Thursday paraded what it said were the coffins of the three Bibases in another of the terror group’s weekly hostage transfer ceremonies, which have infuriated Israel along with the US. After the bodies were transferred to Israel, authorities discovered that the woman returned was an anonymous Gazan and not Shiri Bibas.

An ISIS-affiliated Gaza terror group called the Mujahideen Brigades is widely believed to have been behind the kidnapping and brutal murder of the Bibas family. Hamas claimed the transfer of the anonymous Gazan woman’s body to Israel was unintentional and returned Shiri Bibas’s body the next day, but the saga drained the already diminishing patience in Jerusalem and Washington.

Netanyahu has long maintained that he will not agree to end the war before Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled. Trump has appeared to increasingly back such a prospect, blasting Hamas’s treatment of the Israeli hostages.

Witkoff recognized that the terms of phase two present a major quandary, as Israel wants to see its hostages released but doesn’t want to leave Hamas in power.

Speaking Sunday to CBS, Witkoff said phase two is “much about two things — a permanent ceasefire and the fact that Hamas cannot be allowed to come back into the government.”

The publicly available annexes make no mention of removing Hamas from power, and it is unknown whether the terror group would agree to such terms.

Furthermore, Witkoff insisted that Hamas leaders will have to “physically” leave Gaza, while declining to share how he would go about pursuing that goal.

Meanwhile, Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said in a Sunday statement that the group will hold off on further negotiations with Israel until Jerusalem frees the 602 Palestinian prisoners it was supposed to release on Saturday.

In a statement on Telegram, Mardawi called on mediators to pressure Israel to implement the ceasefire’s provisions.

Witkoff on Sunday also defended Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and remove all Palestinians. The president has said Palestinians would be permanently removed from Gaza, but Witkoff said last week that the proposal “is not an eviction plan.”

On Sunday, though, he declined to say whether Palestinians would be allowed to return.

“Nobody can really live there (in Gaza) in a safe environment for probably 15…20 years,” he argued.

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