US special envoy Steve Witkoff was set to meet Qatari Prime Minister Abdulrahman al-Thani in Spain on Saturday to discuss an end to the Gaza war and the release of all 50 remaining hostages, the Axios news site reported, amid an apparent flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at heading off an Israeli plan to expand its Gaza offensive and occupy Gaza City.
Meanwhile, Ynet cited sources affiliated with Hamas as saying that the US, Qatar and Egypt were mediating in intense negotiations with Israel to prevent it from taking over the entire Gaza Strip, after the cabinet decided overnight Thursday-Friday to conquer Gaza City and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s intention was to temporarily take control of all of Gaza.
The hostage-ceasefire proposal on the table includes an end to the war, full Israeli withdrawal, demilitarization of Palestinian armed groups, exile of Hamas’s military leaders and the establishment of a new civilian authority for Gaza, the sources were cited as saying, adding that Hamas was prepared to resume the fighting if the offer were rejected.
The two reports came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to endorse Israeli designs for Gaza while blaming the impasse in the truce-hostage talks in part on France’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Witkoff and al-Thani were meeting in Ibiza as Qatar and the US hoped to present a comprehensive true-hostage deal proposal to Israel and Hamas within the next two weeks, Axios said, citing two sources familiar with the meeting. The White House did not comment.
An Israeli cabinet minister cited by the news site said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer informed the cabinet on Thursday that Washington was working on an “End Game” proposal for the war. It was unclear from the report what the proposal entailed.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani speaks during a press conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam (not pictured) in Doha, Qatar, on June 24, 2025. (Karim JAAFAR / AFP)
Dermer was said to have brought up the “End Game” plan before the cabinet approved the Gaza City takeover plan, with Dermer voting in favor, according to Hebrew media.
An Israeli official involved in the negotiations was quoted by Axios as saying that “the gap between Israel and Hamas regarding ending the war is huge, so talking of a comprehensive deal is likely to be pointless at this stage.”
There was still no harm in the US and Israel reaching an “End Game” plan on their own, the official was quoted as saying: “Our war is with Hamas, not with the US.”
Axios also cited a senior Israeli official as saying that far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich voted against the plan approved by the security cabinet because Netanyahu indicated expanded military operations in Gaza would be halted if truce-hostage talks were renewed.
The decision to expand the fighting has sparked fierce criticism at home and abroad over concern that the move would endanger the hostages and deepen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, some 20 Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, condemned the decision as “a flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli… in contravention of international legitimacy.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (R) speak with US envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff (L), during the premier’s visit to Washington, DC on July 7, 2025. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Visiting Israel last week, Witkoff told hostage families that the US wanted to finish the war, not expand, and was no longer interested in “piecemeal” truce-hostage deals like those previously discussed. Hostage families have also assailed the partial hostage deals as needlessly protracting their loved ones’ suffering and warned that the plan to conquer Gaza City endangered the hostages.
Rubio blames impasse in talks on Macron’s Palestine recognition
Rubio said ceasefire-hostage talks with Hamas broke down the day French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood, which the top US diplomat said emboldened the terror group.
“Talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize the Palestinian state,” said Rubio in an interview broadcast Friday with the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network. “And then you have other people come forward, other countries say, ‘well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we’re going to recognize a Palestinian state.’ If I’m Hamas, I’d basically conclude, let’s not do a ceasefire… because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.”
Macron announced on July 25 that France would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, triggering a wave of similar declarations by other countries, including Britain and Canada.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) listens as US President Donald Trump addresses a press conference during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague on June 25, 2025. (NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP)
Also on July 25, Israel and the US recalled their negotiators from truce-hostage talks in Doha after receiving what they deemed an unsatisfactory response from Hamas to a proposal for a partial truce-hostage deal. The talks have since stalled.
“So those messages, while largely symbolic in their minds, actually have made it harder to get peace and harder to achieve a deal with Hamas. They feel emboldened,” Rubio said, adding that he agrees with Netanyahu’s accusation that recognition of a Palestinian state rewards the terror group for the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Rubio also rejected as a fiction the country being recognized by France and the other nations: “What these people talk about isn’t real. They can’t define the borders or who’s going to run it… And if it’s going to be run by Hamas, you’re going to be right back into war.”
“As long as Hamas exists… there will never be peace in Gaza,” Rubio said. “Their reason for existing is that they want to destroy Israel. They want to drive every Jew out of the Middle East.”
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives for talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not in picture) at Villa Borsig, the guesthouse of the German Foreign Ministry, in Berlin, Germany, July 23, 2025. (RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP)
“Ultimately, what Israel needs to do for Israel’s security will be determined by Israel,” he said, when asked about Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City.
Separately, US President Donald Trump was asked by the press at the White House on Friday about reports that Somaliland, a breakaway coastal enclave in Somalia, had expressed an interest in taking in Gazans if he recognized Somaliland’s independence.
“We’re looking into that right now. Good question, actually, and another complex one, but we’re working on that right now,” Trump responded, avoiding a direct answer.
Agencies and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
