Donald Trump felt ‘betrayed’ by Israel’s surprise attack on Qatar, sparking a major decision that led to a historic peace deal and secured the release of Israeli hostages.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff revealed that the unprecedented strikes in Doha on September 9 left the White House seething, derailing peace talks with the Hamas negotiators it targeted.
The strikes forced the Hamas leaders ‘underground’, abruptly halting talks that Trump’s team had been holding with negotiators just one day prior, the pair told CBS’s 60 Minutes.
‘We woke up the next morning to find out there had been this attack,’ Witkoff said.
It marked the first crack in a relationship that was seen as unbreakable – Trump’s decades-long friendship with Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu that had defined his Middle East policy since the first administration.
The White House was oblivious to the Israeli prime minister’s plans to strike Doha, Witkoff explained, and said he and Kushner ‘felt betrayed’ by the attack.