US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s adviser, Jared Kushner, said that they felt betrayed by the Israeli strike on Qatar.
In a Friday clip from a 60 Minutes interview that was released ahead of its Sunday airtime, the pair detailed the US administration’s response to the strike, which involved Hamas negotiators.
“I think both Jared and I felt... I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed,” Witkoff told 60 Minutes. He added that he had “no idea whatsoever” about the strike.
In the clip, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl said she heard that Trump was furious about the attack. Neither Witkoff nor Kushner denied this.
“I think [Trump] felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests,” Kushner said.
Strike on Qatar 'metastasized' hostage deal negotiations
Witkoff went on to say that the strike on Hamas members in Qatar froze the negotiations regarding the hostage and ceasefire deal.
“It had a metastasizing effect, because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks,” Witkoff said. “We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them.”
According to Witkoff, it became very apparent after this attack that Qatar’s intermediary role was critical to the negotiations.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X/Twitter that the interview showed that “after the failed attack on Doha, Trump thought [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had lost control, and imposed a deal on him that Netanyahu didn’t want.”
“The 60 Minutes interview proves that it could have been arranged for Egypt to govern Gaza and help us fight Hamas,” Lapid continued. “Instead, Netanyahu’s lack of control led to Turkey and Qatar entering the talks – two of Hamas’s ideological partners.”