The Sheikh, the Mogul and the Diplomat: The Trio Who Sealed the Gaza Truce

At his seaside office complex in Doha on Wednesday evening, the Qatari prime minister thought he had a deal. Hamas’s negotiators, led by a burly former lawmaker, had left the prime minister’s office, having given up on an 11th-hour demand that was the last major obstacle to a cease-fire in Gaza after 466 days of war.

Reporters had begun to assemble in an auditorium downstairs, expecting to witness the prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, announce that he and other mediators had finally brokered a deal. Two American envoys joined Sheikh Mohammed as he prepared his statement.

Suddenly, there was a new problem, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

In a room elsewhere on the sixth floor, the Israeli delegation, led by the heads of Israel’s two main intelligence agencies, had their own last-minute demand. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to clarify the names of a handful of Palestinian prisoners whom Israel would release during the truce.

As his aides tried to resolve the final hitch, Sheikh Mohammed sat in his office with Brett McGurk, President Biden’s lead negotiator, and Steve Witkoff, the representative of President-elect Donald J. Trump, hoping that their efforts had not been wasted.

This account of the final days of negotiation is based on conversations with nine people involved in or briefed on the talks, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The truce that was ultimately announced at the belated news briefing, hours after Israel’s new demand, was little different to versions promoted for most of the past year by mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the Biden administration, whose representatives met frequently with the warring parties in Cairo, Doha and several European capitals throughout 2024.