Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

Analysis Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals
Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed. (AFP/File)
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Updated 29 January 2025
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Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals

Steven Witkoff, the real estate investor forging President Trump’s Middle East diplomatic deals
  • The envoy, currently visting the region, helped seal the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas
  • Has little diplomatic experience but fits the Trump mold as loyal and a tough negotiator

LONDON: When President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff viewed with his own eyes on Wednesday the devastation wrought on Gaza, it might have taken him back to another apocalyptic vision in his home city of New York.

The real estate investor and developer, who has been credited with an instrumental role in securing the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, was watching from his office window as the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Bronx-born Witkoff rushed to pick up his children before heading to Ground Zero. According to the book “The New Kings of New York,” he spent much of the night holding a rope attached to a firefighter digging through debris for survivors.

“Guys who had uniforms on are walking up these staircases to rescue people, and they all died,” Witkoff said of the terror attacks. “They didn’t go home to their families. That’s when I remember thinking: ‘I cannot do enough.’”




Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades. (AFP)

It may have been a similar sentiment that drove the 67-year-old billionaire to accept an offer from his close friend Trump to take on one of his administration’s most challenging foreign policy positions.

Witkoff, a Jew with close ties to Israel and business links to the Arab world, feels a deep connection to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza that followed.

He has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages, but also described a unity with those who lost children throughout the conflict by drawing parallels with his own grief. Witkoff’s son Andrew died from an opioid overdose at the age of 22 in 2011.

A Middle Eastern diplomat told NBC News that Witkoff talked about his son during the ceasefire negotiations, telling officials he “empathizes with parents who have lost children on both sides.”

In remarks in New York on Sunday night, he said: “I’m always comparing my family and what it went through when I lost my boy, Andrew, and what it must have been like for these families not knowing what was going to happen to their girls.

“So, when the president asked me to do this, I thought to myself, this will be the most worthy thing I could ever do in my life. Nothing else would matter beyond this.”




Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip. (AP)

When Trump appointed Witkoff in November he was an outsider to the traditional world of diplomacy, with no foreign policy experience.

Yet, this fits the Trump mold perfectly — selecting his most important team members based on two criteria: that he trusts them implicitly and that they can ruthlessly close a deal.

With the Gaza ceasefire in place and progressing through the first of three phases, attention will now be drawn to how Witkoff can keep the process on track.

But he is already looking further ahead to whether the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries reached during Trump’s first term could be expanded to include Saudi Arabia and other countries such as Qatar.

BIO

Name: Steven Charles Witkoff

Birth: March 15, 1957

Occupation: Real estate investor and developer

Home city: New York


If successful, attention would turn to whether the Trump administration could finally broker the ultimate deal — a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Gaza ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. The deal led to rare cooperation between the incoming administration and the outgoing Joe Biden presidency.

While the main terms of the agreement had been largely the same for eight months, it was Trump’s demand that it should be in place before he took office or there would be “all hell to pay” that added the necessary pressure.




Liri Albag reunited with family at an army screening point in Reim in southern Israel. (AFP)


The man turning the screws on both sides was Witkoff.

As details of the deal emerged, so did Israeli media reports that Trump’s envoy had deployed his ruthless streak to get things over the line.

He called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday Jan. 11 from Qatar, where the negotiations were taking place, to say he would fly to Israel to discuss the agreement the following afternoon.

When Netanyahu’s aides suggested he would not be available during the Jewish Sabbath, Witkoff delivered an unequivocal “salty” response and the meeting went ahead.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Witkoff told Netanyahu: “The president has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back.” Netanyahu was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

In a subsequent interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Witkoff said: “We had a discussion with the prime minister about how we needed to get focused in a short period of time and get organized so that we could get to the finish line.

“He convened what looked to me like maybe nine, 10, 11 of the top commanders in the Israeli armed forces. He gave direction to his team to be very proactive, and that was the difference maker.”




Netanyahu, left, was forced to accept the agreement, bringing a halt to 15 months of fighting and starting a series of exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. (Israeli PM’s office)


Merissa Khurma, Middle East Program director at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said that while Biden’s team also deserved credit, it was the pressure from Trump and his relationship with Witkoff that was key to getting the agreement done.

“Empowered with this trust that he (Witkoff) has from President Trump and given that he was clearly given the green light to pressure both sides to make this happen he was able to be very effective,” Khurma told Arab News.

“Without this pressure, that was important not just on Hamas, but particularly on Netanyahu himself, it would have been very difficult to pull this through.”

Witkoff is one of Trump’s closest friends, golf partner and a fellow New Yorker, who has known the president for decades.

He was raised on Long Island and studied law at Hofstra University. He joined the Dreyer & Traub legal firm where Trump was a client, but his ambitions switched — he wanted to become one of the real estate tycoons he was representing.

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He started a company in 1985 that bought up relatively cheap New York tenement buildings, often doing maintenance work himself.

When he moved over to office buildings, things took off and in 1997 he set up the Witkoff Group. Purchases of famous New York skyscrapers including the Woolworth and Daily News buildings followed. More recently he has focused on Florida, where he relocated in 2019.

An indication of his business links with Arab countries came in 2023 when the Witkoff Group sold Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel to the Qatari Investment Authority for $623 million.

Real estate associates described Witkoff as “smart, personable and a talented negotiator with a common touch,” the Journal reported.




Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory. (AP)

His friendship with the president has grown deeper during personal traumas. At the Republican National Convention in July, Witkoff described how Trump, “a kind and compassionate person,” had helped him get through the grief of losing his son. He was then invited to speak at a White House Summit on the opioid crisis in 2018.

Witkoff was playing golf with Trump in Florida in September when a second assassination attempt was made on the future president.

It was during Trump’s second run at the presidency that Witkoff’s role became more prominent.

He was a key fundraiser, providing a link to wealthy Jewish donors and in an early test of his diplomatic skills he was deployed on several occasions to smooth things over between Trump and prominent Republicans.

In the announcement of his appointment, Trump’s brief statement said: “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

The selection of a trusted businessman with no diplomacy experience matched Trump’s appointment of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to the same position in his first term.

Kushner oversaw the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic and trade relations between Israel and the UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.




Witkoff has spoken movingly about the suffering of Israeli hostages. (AFP)

While the Accords are often criticized because they had little Palestinian involvement, they were still heralded as a major breakthrough in the Middle East and a big foreign policy win for the Trump administration.

“This transactional nature of dealmaking works very well with the regional leaders, particularly in the GCC,” Khurma said.

They are not really threatened by Trump’s “America First” strategy, she added. They also want to see “the Middle East great again” and want to work toward that.

Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, even without the deep regional understanding, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy.

“We have people that know everything about the Middle East, but they can’t speak properly,” Trump said of Witkoff earlier this month. “He is a great negotiator, that’s what I need.”




Thousands of Palestinians have headed back to their homes in the north since a ceasefire deal was agreed. (AP)


However, as Trump found out this week when he suggested that large numbers of Palestinians could be moved out of Gaza permanently, not fully grasping the regional dynamics can cause problems. The president’s idea was met with strong rebuttals from Jordan and Egypt.

Beyond ensuring the ceasefire plan progresses to the next phase, Witkoff will be pushing for a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Saudi Arabia’s firm position is that ties with Israel would only happen once a Palestinian state has been established.

Witkoff was expected to be in Israel on Wednesday to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza and inspect Israeli “corridors” carved through the territory.




Placing Witkoff as his Middle East figurehead, shows how much Trump trusts him to deliver his version of transactional, dealmaking diplomacy. (AP)

There is already concern over whether the next phase of the ceasefire will hold, with Netanyahu under pressure from the hardline members of his government. Witkoff will have to deploy all of his boardroom nous to keep the fragile ceasefire, in a complex and devastating conflict, on track.

“The Middle East envoy does not necessarily understand all the different dynamics at play but it seems that he has good rapport with the Arab allies of the United States,” Khurma said.

“But they’re going to have to be confronted with a very delicate balancing act with regard to how they support Israel, but at the same time exert the necessary pressure to keep things moving.”

 


Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery
Updated 56 min 52 sec ago
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Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery
  • Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
  • “Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP

AL-JAILI, Sudan: The once-pristine white oil tanks of Sudan’s largest refinery have been blackened by nearly two years of devastating war, leaving the country heavily dependent on fuel imports it can ill afford.
The Chinese-built Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), just days after fighting with the regular army erupted in April 2023.
For months, artillery exchanges battered the facility, forcing a complete shutdown in July 2023.
The regular army finally recaptured the refinery in January as part of a wider offensive to retake greater Khartoum but operations remain at a standstill, with vast sections of the plant lying in ruins.
Towering storage tanks, which once gleamed under the sun, are now cloaked in soot and the ground is littered with twisted pipes and pools of leaked oil.
“Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP. “Other sections need to be entirely replaced.”
Before the war, Al-Jaili processed up to 100,000 barrels per day of crude, meeting nearly half of Sudan’s fuel needs.
“The refinery was crucial for Sudan, covering 50 percent of the country’s petrol needs, 40 percent of its diesel and 50 percent of its cooking gas,” economist Khalid el-Tigani told AFP.
“With its closure, Sudan has been forced to rely on imports to fill the gap, with fuel now being brought in by the private sector using foreign currency.”
And hard currency is in desperately short supply in Sudan after the deepening conflict between Sudan’s rival generals uprooted more than 12 million people, devastating the nation’s economy.
The Sudanese pound now trades at around 2,400 to the dollar, compared to 600 before the war, leaving imported goods beyond the means of most people.
During the army’s recapture of the refinery in January, what remained of it was gutted by a massive fire.
The RSF blamed the blaze on “barrel bombs” dropped by the air force.
The regular army accused the RSF of deliberately torching it in a “desperate attempt to destroy the country’s infrastructure.”
An AFP team visited the refinery under military escort on Tuesday. Burnt out vehicles lined the roadside as the convoy passed through abandoned neighborhoods.
As the refinery grew nearer, the blackened skeletons of storage tanks loomed in the distance and the acrid smell of burnt oil grew stronger.
The control rooms, where engineers once monitored operations, had been completely gutted.
Pools of water left over from the firefighting effort in January had yet to drain away.
Built in two phases, in 2000 and 2006, the plant cost $2.7 billion to build, with China taking the lead role.
Beijing still retains a 10 percent stake, while the Sudanese state controls the remaining 90 percent.
Refinery officials estimate it will cost at least $1.3 billion to get the refinery working again.
“Some parts must be manufactured in their country of origin, which determines the timeline of repairs,” Muhammad said.
An engineer at the refinery, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that even if Sudan secured the necessary financing, “it would still take at least three years to get this place running again.”
The discovery of large domestic oil reserves in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the Sudanese economy.
But when South Sudan seceded in 2011, the fledgling nation took with it about three-quarters of the formerly united country’s oil output.
South Sudan remains dependent on Sudanese pipelines to export its oil, paying transit fees to the rump country that are one of its few remaining sources of hard currency.
But the war has put that arrangement at risk.
In February last year, the pipeline used to export South Sudanese oil through Port Sudan on the country’s Red Sea coast was knocked out by fighting between the army and the RSF.
Exports were halted for nearly a year, resuming only in January.


German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy

German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy
Updated 20 March 2025
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German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy

German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy
  • Baerbock reopened the mission on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago
  • “The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock

DAMASCUS: Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock officially reopened her country’s embassy in war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic during a one-day visit to Damascus on Thursday.
Baerbock reopened the mission, which closed in 2012 amid the Syrian civil war, on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago.
Her trip also came weeks after sectarian massacres claimed more than 1,500 lives on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority.
“The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock. “The targeted killing of civilians is a terrible crime.”
She called on the transitional government of interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa to “control the actions of the groups within its own ranks and hold those responsible accountable.”
But she stressed that “we want to support the Syrians together with our European partners and the United Nations” as they rebuild their country.
Germany on Monday announced 300 million euros ($325 million) for reconstruction aid in Syria, as part of a donor conference that gathered total pledges of 5.8 billion euros.
A German foreign ministry source said Berlin had officially reopened its embassy in Syria, with an initially small diplomatic team working in Damascus.
Consular affairs and visas would continue to be handled from the Lebanese capital Beirut for practical reasons and due to the security situation in Syria.
The ministry source said that “Germany has a paramount interest in a stable Syria. We can better contribute to the difficult task of stabilization on the ground.
“We can build important diplomatic contacts and thus, among other things, push for an inclusive political transition process that takes into account the interests of all population groups.”
The source added that “with our diplomats on the ground, we can now also once again engage in important work with civil society. And we can respond directly and immediately to serious negative developments.”
Baerbock in her statement warned Syria’s interim authorities that a “new start” with Europe was conditional on it delivering security to all Syrians, regardless of faith, gender or ethnicity.
She said many Syrians “are scared that life in the future Syria will not be safe for all Syrians.”
In the days after March 6, Syria’s coast was gripped by the worst wave of violence since Assad’s overthrow.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,500 civilians, most of them Alawites, the minority to which Assad belongs.
Since Assad’s overthrow, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria, arguing the weapons must not fall into the hands of the new authorities whom it considers jihadists, and deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
Baerbock said “the influence of foreign actors has brought nothing but chaos to Syria in the past.”
“Even today, attacks on Syrian territory threaten the country’s stability. All sides are called upon to exercise maximum military restraint and not to torpedo the intra-Syrian unification process.”


Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor

Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor
Updated 57 min 12 sec ago
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Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor

Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor
  • Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime
  • Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate

ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities detained 37 people for sharing “provocative” content on social media, the interior minister said Thursday, pressing ahead with a crackdown on dissenting voices that escalated with the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.
The detention of a popular opposition leader and key Erdogan rival deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere, despite a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city and road closures. On Thursday, hundreds of university students held a peaceful march in Istanbul to protest the detentions.
It also caused a shockwave in the financial market, triggering temporary halts in trading to prevent panic selling.
Critics see the crackdown as an effort by Erdogan to extend his more then two-decade rule following significant losses by the ruling party in local elections last year. Government officials reject claims that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that the courts operate independently.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime, including 62 that are run by people based abroad. At least 37 of the suspected owners were detained and efforts to detain other suspects were continuing, he wrote on the X social media platform.
Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary scheduled for Sunday. The party’s leader has said the primary will go ahead as planned.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern over the mayor’s detention, saying it was a “very, very bad sign” for Turkiye’s relations with the European Union.
Scholz said it was “depressing for democracy in Turkiye, but certainly also depressing for the relationship between Europe and Turkiye.”
“We can only call for this to end immediately and for opposition and government to stand in competition with each other, and not the opposition being brought to court,” he said.
Prosecutors accused Imamoglu of exploiting his position for financial gain, including the improper allocation of government contracts.
In a separate investigation, prosecutors also accuse Imamoglu of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, by allegedly forming an alliance with Kurdish groups for the Istanbul municipal elections. The PKK, behind a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye, is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and other allies.
It was not clear when authorities would begin questioning the mayor, who can be detained without charges for up to four days. Analysts say Imamoglu could be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor” if he is formally charged with links to the PKK.
Before his detention, Imamoglu already faced multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political ban. He is also appealing a 2022 conviction for insulting members of Turkiye’s Supreme Electoral Council, a case that could result in a political ban.
This week, a university nullified his diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his 1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its business faculty, a decision Imamoglu said he would challenge. The decision effectively bars him from running for president, since the position requires candidates to be university graduates.
Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkiye’s largest city in March 2019, a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.
The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his seat following local elections last year, during which his party made significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.


UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast

UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast
Updated 20 March 2025
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UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast

UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast
  • Ordnance ‘fired at or dropped on’ UN facility, killing 1, injuring 4 others
  • Mines Advisory Group: ‘Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law’

LONDON: A bomb disposal expert from the UK has been injured in an explosion in Gaza.

The unnamed 51-year-old was wounded at a UN facility in Deir Al-Balah on Wednesday. Four others were injured and a UN worker was killed in the incident.

The Briton, who was working in Gaza as an explosive ordnance disposal expert for the Mines Advisory Group, was treated locally before being moved to a hospital in Israel.

Darren Cormack, the charity’s CEO, told the BBC that the man was conducting an explosive hazards assessment at a UN Office for Project Services facility when the explosion occurred.

“The UN has confirmed that today’s incident did not occur in the course of normal EOD operations and resulted from ordnance being fired at or dropped on the building in which the team was working,” Cormack said.

“It is shocking that a humanitarian facility should be subject to attacks of this nature and that humanitarian workers are being killed and injured in the line of duty.”

Cormack added: “Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law.”

Health authorities in Gaza said the explosion was a result of Israeli military activity.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein posted on X: “The circumstances of the incident are being investigated. We emphasize that the initial examination found no connection to IDF (Israel Defense Forces) activity whatsoever.”

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told the BBC: “We are making it clear that all military operations have to be conducted in a way that ensures that all civilians are respected and protected.”

UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said the explosion was “not an accident” and described the situation in Gaza as “unconscionable.”


Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country

Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country
Updated 20 March 2025
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Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country

Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country
  • Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message to Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa supporting efforts to stabilize the situation in the country and saying Russia is ready to engage in “practical cooperation,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Putin confirmed “Russia’s continuing readiness to develop practical cooperation with the Syrian leadership on the whole range of issues on the bilateral agenda in order to strengthen traditionally friendly Russian-Syrian relations,” it quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Syria has been rocked by a wave of sectarian killings. The Kremlin
said
earlier this month it wanted to see a united and “friendly” Syria because instability there could affect the whole of the Middle East.
Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia after he was toppled in December.