The Trump administration released little information Thursday about what the next phase of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas might look like — but one new detail officials did offer: The U.S. is set to provide about 200 troops on the ground under the United States Central Command, or Centcom, to establish a joint task force in the region.
Led by Adm. Brad Cooper, the task force would also include forces from Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and other regional stakeholders. On a call with reporters Thursday night, officials cautioned that no U.S. troops “are intended to go into Gaza,” and that negotiators are still working out where their military base would be.
The guarantee is reflective of the immense effort and pressure the Trump administration has put into getting a deal done.
“Last night, we reached a momentous breakthrough in the Middle East, something that people said was never going to be done,” Trump said at his Cabinet meeting Thursday, adding that the remaining Israeli hostages would be released either Monday or Tuesday. “I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace.”
Officials on the Thursday night call expressed cautious optimism, making clear that the immediate focus over the next few days is to proceed through the first phase of the ceasefire agreement before a longer plan can be negotiated.
“I think, right now, we’re just focused on making sure any gaps are patched up in the agreement,” said one senior U.S. official. The call came moments before the Israeli Cabinet approved the agreement, officially starting a high-stakes alarm clock. Israel would have 24 hours to complete an initial withdrawal of its forces in Gaza, and then Hamas would 72 hours to release its hostages.
“Quite frankly, we’re working to get going as quickly as possible, because I think we really want to see everyone come home as quickly as possible,” the senior official added.
The deal marks the first phase of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza, which was unveiled last week.
One of Trump’s primary goals in office has been to get the hostages held by Hamas released. He’s frequently met in the Oval Office with family members of those still held and with hostages already released, and he’s used nearly every lever of presidential diplomacy, strong-arming and his own deal-making personality to make it happen — including forcefully telling his lead negotiators to “get it done” before they flew to Egypt for the last stretch of negotiations.
Trump, one U.S. official said, asked U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, ‘What are the odds of a deal,” last Friday.
When they responded “100%,” the president gave the pair “basically every authority” needed to get it done. Witkoff and Kushner would speak to the president spontaneously and repeatedly, officials said, over the course of the days-long discussions, including on speaker with negotiators from other nations.
The ceasefire and exchange mark the first concrete progress in the two-year war that began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed roughly 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. Israel’s ensuing campaign has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and the United Nations has warned that famine and devastation have engulfed much of the territory.
Senior U.S. officials, delivering reporters a timeline of the deal, described a flurry of diplomatic meetings over the course of months and several weeks.
In August, Witkoff and Kushner helped broker initial discussions around a small-scale hostage and prisoner swap of 10 people, a second senior U.S. official said. Those early talks, they said, laid the groundwork for a broader peace framework.
But one White House official who spoke to NOTUS identified the early Sept. 9 Israeli strike in Doha, Qatar, that killed multiple members of Hamas and one Qatari official as an inflection point. The strike angered Trump, who had spent months bolstering his relationship with Qatari leaders. And, in their belief, it gave Arab nations a comprehensive position to rally against in pursuing a deal. That event set off a mad dash of diplomacy over the next weeks that some believe might not have happened without the strike.
In the following weeks, Witkoff and Kushner drafted what would become Trump’s 20-point plan, drawing on elements from past “principles and several of the other negotiations” they previously had, according to the second U.S. official. The proposal was refined during last month’s gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, where Trump’s team met with foreign ministers and senior officials from Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and other Arab and Muslim nations to test support for the plan. Those meetings came before bringing the deal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and convincing him to agree and announce it at the White House days later. Hamas accepted parts of the deal on Friday.
U.S. officials then flew to Egypt on Wednesday to iron out the final details, saying that “multiple breakthroughs” in person happened in negotiations with regional partners that sped up the dealmaking. They cited deep mistrust between Israel and Hamas that had to be rectified first before compromises could be made.
“We began to develop consensus on 20 hostages coming out at one time,” the second official said. “We began to develop consensus around how the Israelis were going to swap out the prisoners and what that decision-making process looked like. People became more malleable.”
Officials cited “fatigue” on the part of Hamas and Arab nations as a reason for the deal.
“I think also that we began to detect that Hamas had had enough,” the second official said when asked about the change in leverage. “Every family in Gaza has been affected by this.”
The first senior official also cited motivations from Israel to return to normalcy after a brutal war. Israel’s campaign against Gaza has caused many government officials both in the U.S. and abroad to accuse the Jewish state of committing acts of genocide, which has harmed its reputational standing in the world and led to civilian anger with its government at home.
“I think the motivation from Israel to make the deal was the opportunity to convert their military victories over the last years with Hezbollah, with Hamas, with Iran into political victories,” the official said.
U.S. officials, after leaving Egypt, went directly to Israel to present the plan to their governing bodies, including the Cabinet that would eventually approve it, entering Israel and Hamas into the first phase of the latest ceasefire.
Uncertainty remains over the next phase of Trump’s proposal, particularly regarding how Hamas would disarm, who will govern Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal and which international guarantees would enforce the deal. U.S. officials say they purposefully split the plan into two phases, so that a partial withdrawal and a hostage release could come first while other details get negotiated later.
Lawmakers from both major U.S. parties voiced optimism, calling the deal a welcome step after two years of war. But former U.S. diplomats cautioned that the breakthrough may prove short-lived, warning that disarmament, governance and enforcement could quickly test the plan’s limits.
Still, officials expressed pride and optimism for the future while acknowledging the fragility that remains.
The first senior official said: “There’s still just a lot of ways that this can go wrong, so we’re staying on top of the details to make sure everyone fulfills their obligations and that any misunderstandings are quickly discussed and adjudicated.”