Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed. (AFP/File)
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Updated 29 January 2025
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Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

  • The envoy, currently visting the region, helped seal the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas
  • Has little diplomatic experience but fits the Trump mold as loyal and a tough negotiator

LONDON: When President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff viewed with his own eyes on Wednesday the devastation wrought on Gaza, it might have taken him back to another apocalyptic vision in his home city of New York.

The real estate investor and developer, who has been credited with an instrumental role in securing the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, was watching from his office window as the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Bronx-born Witkoff rushed to pick up his children before heading to Ground Zero. According to the book “The New Kings of New York,” he spent much of the night holding a rope attached to a firefighter digging through debris for survivors.

“Guys who had uniforms on are walking up these staircases to rescue people, and they all died,” Witkoff said of the terror attacks. “They didn’t go home to their families. That’s when I remember thinking: ‘I cannot do enough.’”




Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades. (AFP)

It may have been a similar sentiment that drove the 67-year-old billionaire to accept an offer from his close friend Trump to take on one of his administration’s most challenging foreign policy positions.

Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed.

He has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages, but also described a unity with those who lost children throughout the conflict by drawing parallels with his own grief. Witkoff’s son Andrew died from an opioid overdose at the age of 22 in 2011.

A Middle Eastern diplomat told NBC News that Witkoff talked about his son during the ceasefire negotiations, telling officials he “empathizes with parents who have lost children on both sides.”

In remarks in New York on Sunday night, he said: “I’m always comparing my family and what it went through when I lost my boy, Andrew, and what it must have been like for these families not knowing what was going to happen to their girls.

“So, when the president asked me to do this, I thought to myself, this will be the most worthy thing I could ever do in my life. Nothing else would matter beyond this.”




Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip. (AP)

When Trump appointed Witkoff in November he was an outsider to the traditional world of diplomacy, with no foreign policy experience.

Yet, this fits the Trump mold perfectly — selecting his most important team members based on two criteria: that he trusts them implicitly and that they can ruthlessly close a deal.

With the Gaza ceasefire in place and progressing through the first of three phases, attention will now be drawn to how Witkoff can keep the process on track.

But he is already looking further ahead to whether the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries reached during Trump’s first term could be expanded to include Saudi Arabia and other countries such as Qatar.

BIO

Name: Steven Charles Witkoff

Birth: March 15, 1957

Occupation: Real estate investor and developer

Home city: New York


If successful, attention would turn to whether the Trump administration could finally broker the ultimate deal — a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Gaza ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. The deal led to rare cooperation between the incoming administration and the outgoing Joe Biden presidency.

While the main terms of the agreement had been largely the same for eight months, it was Trump’s demand that it should be in place before he took office or there would be “all hell to pay” that added the necessary pressure.




Liri Albag reunited with family at an army screening point in Reim in southern Israel. (AFP)


The man turning the screws on both sides was Witkoff.

As details of the deal emerged, so did Israeli media reports that Trump’s envoy had deployed his ruthless streak to get things over the line.

He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday Jan. 11 from Qatar, where the negotiations were taking place, to say he would fly to Israel to discuss the agreement the following afternoon.

When Netanyahu’s aides suggested he would not be available during the Jewish Sabbath, Witkoff delivered an unequivocal “salty” response and the meeting went ahead.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Witkoff told Netanyahu: “The president has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back.” Netanyahu was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

In a subsequent interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Witkoff said: “We had a discussion with the prime minister about how we needed to get focused in a short period of time and get organized so that we could get to the finish line.

“He convened what looked to me like maybe nine, 10, 11 of the top commanders in the Israeli armed forces. He gave direction to his team to be very proactive, and that was the difference maker.”




Netanyahu, left, was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. (Israeli PM’s office)


Merissa Khurma, Middle East Program director at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said that while Biden’s team also deserved credit, it was the pressure from Trump and his relationship with Witkoff that was key to getting the agreement done.

“Empowered with this trust that he (Witkoff) has from President Trump and given that he was clearly given the green light to pressure both sides to make this happen he was able to be very effective,” Khurma told Arab News.

“Without this pressure, that was important not just on Hamas, but particularly on Netanyahu himself, it would have been very difficult to pull this through.”

Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades.

He was raised on Long Island and studied law at Hofstra University. He joined the Dreyer & Traub legal firm where Trump was a client, but his ambitions switched — he wanted to become one of the real estate tycoons he was representing.

He started a company in 1985 that bought up relatively cheap New York tenement buildings, often doing maintenance work himself.

When he moved over to office buildings, things took off and in 1997 he set up the Witkoff Group. Purchases of famous New York skyscrapers including the Woolworth and Daily News buildings followed. More recently he has focused on Florida, where he relocated in 2019.

An indication of his business links with Arab countries came in 2023 when the Witkoff Group sold Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel to the Qatari Investment Authority for $623 million.

Real estate associates described Witkoff as “smart, personable and a talented negotiator with a common touch,” the Journal reported.




Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory. (AP)

His friendship with the president has grown deeper during personal traumas. At the Republican National Convention in July, Witkoff described how Trump, “a kind and compassionate person,” had helped him get through the grief of losing his son. He was then invited to speak at a White House Summit on the opioid crisis in 2018.

Witkoff was playing golf with Trump in Florida in September when a second assassination attempt was made on the future president.

It was during Trump’s second run at the presidency that Witkoff’s role became more prominent.

He was a key fundraiser, providing a link to wealthy Jewish donors and in an early test of his diplomatic skills he was deployed on several occasions to smooth things over between Trump and prominent Republicans.

In the announcement of his appointment, Trump’s brief statement said: “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

The selection of a trusted businessman with no diplomacy experience matched Trump’s appointment of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to the same position in his first term.

Kushner oversaw the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic and trade relations between Israel and the UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.




Witkoff has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages. (AFP)

While the Accords are often criticized because they had little Palestinian involvement, they were still heralded as a major breakthrough in the Middle East and a big foreign policy win for the Trump administration.

“This transactional nature of dealmaking works very well with the regional leaders, particularly in the GCC,” Khurma said.

They are not really threatened by Trump’s “America First” strategy, she added. They also want to see “the Middle East great again” and want to work toward that.

Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, even without the deep regional understanding, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy.

“We have people that know everything about the Middle East, but they can’t speak properly,” Trump said of Witkoff earlier this month. “He is a great negotiator, that’s what I need.”




Thousands of Palestinians have headed back to their homes in the north since a ceasefire deal was agreed. (AP)


However, as Trump found out this week when he suggested that large numbers of Palestinians could be moved out of Gaza permanently, not fully grasping the regional dynamics can cause problems. The president’s idea was met with strong rebuttals from Jordan and Egypt.

Beyond ensuring the ceasefire plan progresses to the next phase, Witkoff will be pushing for a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Saudi Arabia’s firm position is that ties with Israel would only happen once a Palestinian state has been established.

Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory.




Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy. (AP)

There is already concern over whether the next phase of the ceasefire will hold, with Netanyahu under pressure from the hardline members of his government. Witkoff will have to deploy all of his boardroom nous to keep the fragile ceasefire, in a complex and devastating conflict, on track.

“The Middle East envoy does not necessarily understand all the different dynamics at play but it seems that he has good rapport with the Arab allies of the United States,” Khurma said.

“But they’re going to have to be confronted with a very delicate balancing act with regard to how they support Israel, but at the same time exert the necessary pressure to keep things moving.”

 


Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Updated 7 sec ago
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Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

  • The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks
  • The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother weeping for a teenaged daughter shot dead by a Turkish sniper and a father mourning a son killed by PKK militants are among countless families hoping that a new peace drive can end Turkiye’s four-decade-old Kurdish conflict.
Both live in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where tens of thousands of lives have been lost in violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed.

Fahriye Cukur (L) and Mustafa Cukur hold a portrait of their daughter Rozerin, who was killed in 2016 during fierce clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016, during an interview in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

At her home in the city of Diyarbakir, Fahriye Cukur, 63, cannot take her eyes off a picture on the wall of her daughter Rozerin in school uniform. She was killed during clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016.
The collapse of a truce in 2015 sparked a new round of the conflict when many government curfews were imposed, including in the city’s Sur district.
Cukur said her daughter — who was passionate about photography — had gone to Sur during a break in a curfew to collect exam papers from friends. But the authorities suddenly reduced the break from five hours to three and the fighting reignited.
“People were stuck there, including my daughter. She took refuge at the home of an elderly couple, but when she tried to leave, she was shot by a sniper,” her mother told AFP.
The family found out about the death through a news bulletin.

It took five months, several protests and a hunger strike for the grieving parents to get her body back.

A women walks next to the Four-Legged Minaret Mosque where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot dead at the historical Sur district in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Cukur said the authorities had mixed up their teenage daughter with a female PKK fighter, codenamed Roza, who had been hiding in the same district.
They claimed she had been trained in the mountains, but her mother told AFP: “My daughter was never engaged in political activism.
“She loved school, she wanted to become a psychiatrist and help her people,” she added, indicating the “TC” insignia — meaning “republic of Turkiye” — on her school uniform.
The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks.
Many families hope this will end the conflict and spare other families from the pain they live with.
“We can’t forget what happened but we have to hope. I have two more kids: how do I know the same thing won’t happen to them tomorrow?” she said.
Last month, the International Crisis Group said clashes between the militants and Turkish troops were largely confined to northern parts of Iraq and Syria, with violence on Turkish soil at its lowest level since 2015.
“At least we can breathe a bit now,” she said.
“I want the bloodshed to stop. I want a ceasefire. And I am not alone.”

In the nearby province of Mardin, Sehmuz Kaya, a 67-year-old Kurd, recalled how his son Vedat, a police officer, was kidnapped by PKK militants in eastern Turkiye in July 2015.
Vedat Kaya, wearing civilian clothes, was in a car with his brother and four others when militants blocked the road.
“They only kidnapped Vedat,” he told AFP, saying it was months before the family saw a PKK video of him in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq.
The family tried every possible channel, through the state and the main pro-Kurdish party, to secure his release.
But after six years, they received a devastating call from the authorities, who said he was one of the 13 “Gara martyrs.” The 13, all but one of whom were soldiers or police, had been killed by the PKK in the Gara region of northern Iraq.
“I was devastated,” he said, struggling for words, saying his son had been tortured before his death.
“They have no faith nor conscience. My son was just doing his job,” he said.
Pinned on the ceiling is a huge Turkish flag, and on the walls are photos of Vedat, whose name has been given to a nearby park.
Although he wants peace more than anything, he admitted he has little faith.
“They are not honest,” he snapped, referring to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party that is relaying messages from Ocalan to the government. He suspects they have ties to the PKK.
“The families of the martyrs are heartbroken. Enough is enough,” he said. “We support the process but we want something real.”
 

 


Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
Updated 23 min 54 sec ago
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Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

  • Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.


Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Updated 17 February 2025
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Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he had arrived in Turkiye for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on prisoner exchanges and other matters.
“Official visit with the First Lady to Turkiye. Meetings with President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account.


 

 


In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

Updated 17 February 2025
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In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

  • Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara

LAAYOUNE: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati became on Monday the first French official to make a formal visit to the Western Sahara, a sign of Paris’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory.
“This is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Dati told AFP, using Morocco’s name for the area, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati described the visit as “historic.”
The United Nations considers Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
Dati, accompanied by Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, launched a French cultural mission in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city.
She promised to open the territory’s first French culture center to “benefit children in the region, but also teachers, schools, students and teacher trainers.”
In Dakhla, the Western Sahara’s second city some 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Laayoune, Dati said she is set to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema and audiovisual art.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining ties between Rabat and Paris.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Morocco’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
The turnabout marked by Macron’s statement drew a strong reaction from Algiers.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
Macron renewed French support for Morocco’s plan in October, pledging investments and a “strong and exceptional partnership.”
Also in October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” for the Western Sahara dispute.
 

 


Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
Updated 17 February 2025
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Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

  • “If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Hamas militants must surrender their arms and leave Gaza.
He was speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the next phase of the truce between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
Smotrich in a video statement said he “will demand a vote” by ministers on US President Donald Trump’s plan and that Israel must “issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas — immediately release all hostages, leave Gaza for other countries, and lay down your arms.”
“If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A strong opponent of stopping the war, he has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war is not resumed after the end of the first stage of the ceasefire.
Trump’s plan lacked detail but has triggered widespread outrage internationally for his call to resettle Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan under a US “takeover” of Gaza.
Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of the territory.
According to Israeli media, the security cabinet convened on Monday evening to discuss phase two of the fragile ceasefire which began on January 19.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
“It’s them or us. Either we crush Hamas, or God forbid, Hamas will crush us,” Smotrich said.
“I call on the prime minister to declare that once the war resumes after Phase One, Israel will, from the first day, seize 10 percent of Gaza’s territory, establish full sovereignty there, and immediately apply Israeli law,” he added.
“Furthermore, it must be announced that once combat resumes, all humanitarian aid will be completely halted.”
Smotrich further said that according to a plan currently in preparation “Gaza’s residents will be allowed to leave, but only in one direction — with no possibility of return.”
“The loss of territory is the only heavy price our enemies understand — the only thing that will make them realize we are serious,” Smotrich added.
Since the first phase of the truce began last month, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of 251 people seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.