U.S. Proposes Ceasefire Extension in Exchange for Hostages

The Washington Post

12:28 JST, March 8, 2025

A U.S. proposal floated at a recent meeting between Hamas and a U.S. negotiator would see the remaining American hostage, Edan Alexander, and a number of other living Hamas captives exchanged for a two-month extension of the Gaza Strip ceasefire and a resumption of humanitarian aid to the enclave.

The plan was one of several options discussed as a possible way forward during recent talks held in Qatar between U.S. and Hamas officials, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive diplomacy.

Also on the table is a proposal advanced by Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, to extend the current ceasefire by about 50 days, until the end of the Ramadan-Passover holidays. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to what he calls the “Witkoff plan,” which would begin with the release of half the remaining hostages and end with freedom for the rest.

The ceasefire that began in late January has appeared increasingly tenuous, and Gazans have remained without humanitarian aid since Israel blocked it last weekend.

Hamas has rejected the Witkoff proposal but has not immediately responded to other options, people familiar with Hamas’s position said. The militant group is weighing the possible advantages of a direct deal with the Trump administration, the people said, while continuing to insist that the end goal of negotiations must be full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the permanent end of the war in conjunction with the final release of hostages, as stipulated in the agreement both parties signed in January.

While an Arab official familiar with the negotiations said only one direct meeting with Hamas had taken place, a diplomat familiar with the events said that there had been several rounds of talks between U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler and senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya in Doha, the Qatari capital. The discussions were direct, bilateral meetings facilitated between the two sides and not orchestrated by Qatar, the diplomat said.

Israel has refused substantive negotiations that were supposed to begin before the current ceasefire expired, and the country has indicated that it is preparing to resume fighting until all remaining Hamas remnants are vanquished. The terms of the agreement were indirectly negotiated between Israel and Hamas over more than a year with mediation by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, without direct U.S. or Israeli contact with Hamas, a designated terrorist group.

Trump acknowledged the direct talks Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “we are having discussions with Hamas” about both U.S. and Israeli hostages. He denied any suggestion that the United States had offered to pay for releases. “We’re not giving cash,” he said.

“All the hostages” are important to the administration, “but Edan Alexander is an American … so he’s a top priority for us,” Witkoff told reporters Thursday at the White House.

“Hopefully we’ll see some good conduct next week, and I’ll be able to go in there and have discussions,” said Witkoff, who plans to travel to the region next week. It was unclear whether he planned to meet directly with Hamas.

“We’re prepared to have dialogue, but if the dialogue doesn’t work, then the alternative is not such a good alternative for Hamas,” he said.

Trump has frequently boasted of his ability, compared with those of earlier administrations, to bring home Americans held hostage or deemed unjustly imprisoned throughout the world.

Six imprisoned Americans were freed by Venezuela after Trump envoy Richard Grenell flew to Caracas for an early February meeting with autocratic president Nicolás Maduro, whom the United States maintains was fraudulently elected.

Two weeks later, Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher imprisoned in Russia on drug charges since 2021, was brought directly to the White House for a televised late-night meeting with Trump after his release following talks in Moscow between Witkoff and President Vladimir Putin. In both cases, Trump said, President Joe Biden had failed to bring them home.

At a ceremony Thursday at the State Department observing a 2023 law that declared March 9 “U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day,” Boehler told assembled hostage families that “there’s nothing more important for this country than for everyone to know that if they’re abroad and they’re taken that the country has their back.”

Trump, he said, “has made it a critical priority of his and his administration.”

Of the 14 Americans among about 250 taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Alexander, a 20-year-old dual U.S.-Israeli citizen from New Jersey and a member of the Israel Defense Forces, is the last American among about two dozen living captives remaining in Gaza following various earlier releases. The bodies of four deceased Americans are also in Hamas hands.

Trump held what Witkoff said was an emotional meeting Wednesday with released American and Israeli hostages. Shortly afterward, the president threatened in a social media post that there would be “hell to pay” if Hamas did not “release all of the Hostages now, not later.” Otherwise, he said, “it is OVER for you…You are DEAD.”

Trump said the United States would send Israel “everything it needs to finish the job” of destroying Hamas if the release of all the hostages was not forthcoming.

While Biden officials last year considered meeting with Hamas as negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire deal stalled, both his administration and Hamas ultimately balked, according to the people familiar with the negotiations. The three-stage agreement ultimately was signed by both Hamas and Israel days before Trump’s inauguration, only after he intervened with Israel to push it forward.

During the first stage of what Trump called an “epic” deal, Israeli forces redeployed from populated areas in the enclave to border buffer zones, and 33 hostages were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Humanitarian aid, which had been severely restricted for months by Israel, greatly increased. Designed to last for six weeks, that temporary ceasefire ended last Saturday.

Under the agreement, the ceasefire was to continue during negotiations over a second phase in which all remaining hostages would be released, Israeli troops would completely withdraw from Gaza, and the war would end. A third phase would install a new, non-Hamas government in Gaza and begin reconstruction of the destroyed enclave.