Steve Witkoff, the White House envoy who has led Gaza hostage-release and cease-fire talks for the U.S., said Tuesday evening that talks for phase two of the deal between Israel and Hamas remain in flux but that he’s hoping for progress by the weekend.

Witkoff also suggested, speaking at an American Jewish Committee event, that Lebanon and Syria could come to normalize relations with Israel.

On the hostage-release talks, Witkoff said that he’s “not entirely sure yet” how Israel and Hamas will get to phase two of the deal, “but we are working, we’re making a lot of progress.” If enough progress materializes in the next few days, Witkoff said he’ll travel to the region on Sunday to help finalize a deal.

“People are responsive,” Witkoff said. “Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s a very chaotic place, the Middle East.”

He said that his and the White House’s top goal is to return all of the hostages.

Witkoff was initially set to travel to the Middle East on Wednesday, but his plans were delayed by Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky’s visit to the United States, slated for the end of the week. Witkoff, a close friend of the president, has also become a key negotiator with Russia.

In the longer term, Witkoff suggested that Lebanon and Syria could join the Abraham Accords, the regional peace agreements between Israel and Arab states, without providing further details.

He criticized President Joe Biden’s May 2024 proposal for Gaza — which undergirds the cease-fire deal — because it assumed that reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Strip was feasible under a five-year timeline. Witkoff, who noted that he was the first American official to visit the territory in years, said that a 15- to 25-year timeline would be much more realistic.

“It’s a giant slum … it’s a slum that’s been decimated,” Witkoff said. “It is completely destroyed.”

He said that U.S. partners including Jordan and Egypt — both of which Trump has proposed as countries to relocate the population of Gaza to — are “dug in” and “focused on solutions,” actively engaging with the United States.

Regarding Trump’s proposal to remove the Palestinian population from Gaza, Witkoff said that “it’s not an eviction plan, it’s about creating an environment that — whoever should live there — is better than it’s ever been in the last 40 years.” He said that the Trump administration is not seeking to create a mass Palestinian diaspora, which he said would only drive further radicalization.

Witkoff said that Trump’s proposal was focused on “directionally chang[ing] what people are thinking there, how they’re going to live together.”

Trump, Witkoff continued, is not focused on reaching a two-state solution, but instead on “how you get to a better life” for Palestinians, including changing the Palestinian education system and providing better career and quality of life prospects for the Palestinians.

He suggested that the people in Gaza are not interested in waiting 20 years to reestablish normal lives. “Maybe we should be talking about the ability to come back later on, but right here, right now, Gaza is a long-term redevelopment plan.”

He further suggested that the five-year timeline laid out by Biden had hampered progress toward Saudi-Israel normalization, but that normalization efforts can resume once a Gaza redevelopment plan has been more fully articulated.

Witkoff predicted that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would ultimately embrace peace with Israel because the ongoing risks of war and regional instability make it difficult to finance major projects — “the underwriting risk on war is just too high.”

He said he expects that Saudi Arabia and others in the region will put forward development plans in line with the Trump administration’s proposal once they accept that Gaza cannot be rebuilt in the short term. 

He said many countries are stepping up to volunteer to be part of the “permanent solution for the Gazan people” and that the U.S. soon plans to hold a summit with top regional developers to discuss Gaza.

“I think when people see some of the ideas that come from this, they’re going to be amazed,” Witkoff said.

The former real estate developer also said that the Biden administration was largely responsible for the amount of unexploded ordinance left in Gaza, which will make redevelopment more difficult, alleging that the Biden administration’s withholding of some arms from Israel had forced Israel to use old and ultimately non-functional ammunition.

He added that the tunnels under Gaza present a further challenge both in terms of the destruction in the territory and rebuilding it.

To facilitate peace in the Middle East, the U.S. needs to ensure stability in partner countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia and address discontent in their populaces, “but all in all, there are some really good things that are happening,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the Israeli government had taken numerous positive steps prior to Trump taking office, including decimating Hamas, degrading Hezbollah and eliminating its leadership and attacking Iran’s air defenses.

He repeatedly made reference to a film of Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, describing the group as “barbarians” and emphasizing that the Trump administration agrees that Hamas cannot control post-war Gaza.