The Israeli government and President Trump’s Middle East envoy said on Thursday that they were recalling the teams that had been negotiating on a Gaza cease-fire with Hamas, perhaps imperiling the hope for the return of some of the last surviving Israeli hostages and relief for besieged Palestinians.
Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, said in a statement that the latest response to an offer of a deal from Hamas’s surviving leadership showed “a lack of desire to reach a cease-fire in Gaza.” He added that “we will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza,” without specifying what those alternatives might include.
But Israeli officials struck a different tone, saying the recall of the negotiators did not mean an end to the talks. In Jerusalem, a political official with knowledge of the negotiations said that there was no breakdown or collapse after 18 days of indirect talks, but that the negotiators had to “return for consultations” to make any further progress.
Hamas, in a vaguely-worded statement, said it had “submitted its final response after extensive consultations with Palestinian factions, mediators and friendly countries” and had “responded positively.” It said it was “surprised” by Mr. Witkoff’s statements, and said it was working toward a “permanent cease-fire agreement.”
The range of statements made clear that it could be some time before a cease-fire was possible. Several weeks ago, Mr. Trump declared that he thought an agreement for a 60-day cease-fire was only days away.
It was the second international peace negotiation to run into considerable complications for Mr. Trump; what he once predicted would be a 24-hour pathway to an armistice of some kind between Russia and Ukraine has also bogged down in disputes over control of territory and Ukraine’s defenses that has stretched on for six months.
In the talks over Gaza, the issues have centered on the areas where Israel’s military would redeploy and the terms of prisoner swaps.
On Thursday morning, Hamas responded to the latest Israeli cease-fire proposal, saying it was accepting the broad outlines of the deal. But as it often has, Hamas raised several demands — mainly seeking to limit the extent of Israel’s redeployment along the border and to renegotiate the formula for how many prisoners Israel would release in exchange for hostages, according to Israeli and Hamas officials.
Officials from several countries said the withdrawal from the talks by Israel and the United States may have been tactical. There have been several near-deals that collapsed since the last major prisoner swap, six months ago.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Mr. Trump during a recent visit to Washington that he doubted Hamas was serious about a cease-fire, in part because it held a dwindling number of hostages, its only leverage in negotiations. About 50 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, but many of them are most likely dead, Israeli officials say.
In recent months, Mr. Netanyahu has set forth a series of demands for the governing of postwar Gaza, including Hamas laying down its arms and Israeli security control of the territory. The prime minister has also talked about what he calls “voluntary migration” for Gazans that would clear the way for the Israeli military to control the territory for an unspecified period of time, an occupation that some Israeli officials say could last for years.
Israeli and American officials had envisioned a cease-fire of up to 60 days, and a release of about half the known hostages, in return for Palestinians long held in Israel. While Mr. Witkoff and mediators from Qatar and Egypt said that such a cease-fire would provide time for a more permanent agreement, Mr. Netanyahu said repeatedly that the only acceptable outcome was for Hamas to lay down its arms and surrender. He also insisted that the group play no role in governing Gaza.
If Hamas refused to surrender, the prime minister insisted during visits to the White House and Capitol Hill, its leadership would be hunted down and eliminated.
The prime minister’s office said Israel’s team was recalled to Israel for further deliberations. Several hours later, Mr. Witkoff, a real estate developer who also led Mr. Trump’s negotiations with Russia and with Iran, said the United States had also decided to pull its team from Doha.
But neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Witkoff said the talks with Hamas were over, and three Israeli officials said they were expected to continue.
The decision by the United States followed Israel’s longstanding belief that Washington did not apply sufficient pressure on Hamas in previous rounds of talks, particularly under the Biden administration, enabling the group to drag its feet in talks after sensing daylight between the two allies. The Trump administration appears keen to avoid that perception by acting together with Israel.
The decision to recall the negotiating team comes as Mr. Netanyahu faces mounting pressure from his far-right coalition partners to end the talks and intensify the fighting. Their leverage has grown in recent days after two of his coalition parties severed ties with the government over a bill that would require ultra-Orthodox men to serve in the military. But that leverage is likely to diminish early next week, when Parliament enters its summer recess, making it harder for lawmakers to try to topple the government.
“It is time to shut the door to a partial deal for the final time and order the I.D.F. to storm on occupying Gaza,” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and a member of Israel’s security cabinet, said on Wednesday, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel’s military campaign has continued and expanded even as negotiations were underway in recent weeks. This week, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of much of the city of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where it launched ground operations for the first time since the war began in October 2023.
Even so, Mr. Netanyahu suggested in a speech on Thursday evening that negotiations had not yet come to an end. “We are working to obtain another deal that would release our hostages,” he said, somewhat cryptically. “But if Hamas sees our willingness to reach a deal as weakness, as an opportunity to dictate terms of defeat that would endanger Israel, it is making a big mistake.”
Despite Mr. Witkoff’s statement that Hamas is not acting in “good faith” and Israel’s decision to recall its delegation from Doha, negotiations are ongoing and are expected to continue through the coming days, according to three Israeli officials, an official from one of the mediating countries and a Hamas official.
An official from the meditating country said that Mr. Witkoff’s statement was meant to pressure Hamas to move closer to a deal, and that the United States was pressing Israel for more concessions behind the scenes.
But the most intense pressure on Mr. Netanyahu is coming not from Washington, but from home. In Tel Aviv, protesters gathered at several locations on Thursday evening to call on the government to end the war and secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Tens of thousands assembled at a major square on Thursday night, according to the local media.
Aaron Boxerman, Natan Odenheimer and Ronen Bergman contributed reporting.
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
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