President Donald Trump refuted reports that Steve Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, will take over the Iran file, while also lauding Witkoff for his work helping negotiate the cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. 

“No,” Trump said on Thursday after signing a series of executive orders, when asked by a reporter whether he would put Witkoff in charge of Iran strategy and speaking directly with the Iranians. “But he’s certainly somebody I would use. He’s done a fantastic job. He’s a great negotiator.”

Trump declined to answer a question about whether he would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Instead, he said he hopes for a diplomatic solution with Iran.

“It would really be nice if that could be worked out without having to go to that further step,” Trump said, regarding the possibility of strikes. “Iran hopefully will make a deal. I mean, if they don’t make a deal, I guess that’s okay, too.”

Nearly eight months after President Joe Biden gave a White House address laying out the terms of a proposed cease-fire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas, he again spoke at the White House lectern on Wednesday, this time to announce that the two warring sides had “finally” agreed to the deal.

“At long last, I can announce a cease-fire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said. “This is the cease-fire agreement I introduced last spring. Today, Hamas and Israel have agreed to that cease-fire agreement and the whole of ending the war.” 

He offered a veiled rebuttal to conservative critics who opposed the deal when he outlined it last year but are now more supportive of it following the backing of President-elect Donald Trump, whose aides were central to bringing the deal about. 

“This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May. Exactly,” said Biden. But, he added, his administration and the incoming one have “been speaking as one team” while negotiating in the region in recent days. 

Trump announced the deal earlier in a post on his social network Truth Social, where he called it an “epic” agreement. 

The deal has three phases, the first of which will include a “full and complete cease-fire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the populated areas of Gaza and and the release of a number of hostages held by Hamas, including women and elderly and the wounded,” said Biden. “I’m proud to say that Americans will be part of that hostage release in phase one as well, and the vice president and I cannot wait to welcome them home.”

In the first phase of the deal, 33 hostages are set to be gradually released — including some who are not alive.

Phase one will also include the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israel, Biden said, as well as a surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Many of those prisoners are believed to be Palestinians serving life sentences, some for murder of Israelis. During this period, Israel “will negotiate the necessary arrangements to get phase two, which is a permanent end of the war,” said Biden. 

At the start of phase two, there will be an exchange of all the remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and “all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza,” according to Biden. “A temporary ceasefire will become permanent.”

Phase three will include the release of the remains of any additional hostages who were killed, and a “major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin,” said Biden. 

“This is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced, and we reached this point because of the pressure that Israel built on Hamas backed by the United States,” said Biden, who touted Hamas’ military losses, the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the U.S.-led coalition to combat the Houthis as significant achievements. 

“I’m deeply satisfied that this day has come — finally come — for the sake of the people of Israel and the families waiting in agony, and for the sake of the innocent people in Gaza who suffered unimaginable devastation because of the war,” said Biden. “In this deal, the people of Gaza can finally recover and rebuild. They can look to a future without Hamas in power.”

Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s push for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration, some Republicans are raising concerns that the terms of the agreement currently being negotiated could hurt Israel’s ability to defend itself and eliminate future terrorist threats. 

Details are still being finalized on the deal, which could be announced in the coming days, but it includes a 42-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that requires the IDF to evacuate from the heavily populated areas of Gaza to the edges of the Gaza Strip. It will also swap dozens of hostages for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons, with 30 prisoners released for each civilian hostage and 50 prisoners for each female soldier. 

The agreement has been in the works under the outgoing Biden administration, with talks falling apart several times in the last year. Negotiations picked up again after the U.S. election in November, when President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan kicked their efforts to reach a deal before leaving office into overdrive. The team also began updating Trump and Steve Witkoff, the president-elect’s incoming Middle East envoy, on the talks.

Terms of the deal have not changed since Trump and Witkoff got involved, though the speed at which progress has been made has increased since the president-elect reiterated last week that “all hell will break loose” in the region if Hamas did not return the remaining hostages by the time he was sworn in. “I don’t want to hurt your negotiation,” Trump said to Witkoff before issuing the threat last Tuesday. “If they’re [the hostages] not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East.”

Behind the scenes, congressional Republicans have begun fretting that Trump could force them to back a deal that involves terms they’ve opposed for over a year. Some lawmakers and senior staffers have privately discussed the issue among themselves, though none of them have taken additional steps beyond engaging with Trump’s transition team about their concerns. 

None of the GOP lawmakers who spoke to Jewish Insider for this story praised or defended the terms of the deal as it is currently written. The few GOP lawmakers willing to voice their skepticism publicly pointed to specific details that worried them. 

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he was “really in the skeptical column for anything related to Hamas.” Tillis expressed concern that the terror organization was included in negotiations at all.

“I feel like they’re the wrong people to be brokering the deal because, in some respects, that means you’re a part of the future of Gaza. That’s a bad thing,” Tillis told JI. 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that while he wasn’t read up on the specifics of the deal as it currently stands, he had reservations about some of the terms negotiated under the outgoing administration, pointing to the release of Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. 

“The Biden administration hasn’t shown itself to be a very effective negotiator, period,” Cornyn told JI. “I’d be concerned that he [Biden] negotiated a bad deal, which would be consistent with everything he’s done the last four years. ​​While I would applaud the release of the hostages, I am concerned that Hamas is incentivized to take more hostages so they can trade them for more prisoners.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said that he viewed the release of all remaining hostages and the complete surrender of Hamas as critical components for a deal. “I’d want all the hostages back and I’d want Hamas to drop their weapons,” Scott said of his conditions to support an agreement. 

“My attitude is that the way to end this is for Hamas to surrender,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) told JI when asked about the deal. “I think it’s up to Israel to decide how this should work. It’s about Israel’s security.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) did not criticize the deal directly, but rather argued that the Biden administration’s inability to get the hostages released paired with Trump’s recent threats against Hamas proved that pressuring Israel had prolonged the conflict. 

“Everyone knows that Hamas was emboldened to extend their war against Israel, and keep these hostages in unimaginable hell, because Hamas leaders were hoping that the Biden administration would force Israel to capitulate. Everyone also knows that the hostages would not be getting out without President Trump’s threat to unleash hell against Hamas and its patrons,” Cruz told JI in a statement. “The fundamental lesson from the first Trump administration remains just as true today as it was four years ago: The way to secure peace and stability in the Middle East is to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Israeli allies.”

Given the opportunity to speak anonymously, most Republicans said they thought the deal needed to be renegotiated or tossed altogether. Two sources told JI that the Trump team had responded to their concerns by arguing that this deal served as the best vehicle to deliver on the president-elect’s promise to get this done by his first day back in office. 

“To me the fundamentals of this deal are flawed. My heart goes out to the victims’ families, but what we’re trying to do is to also make sure that we have something that has staying power and gives us certainty that there’s not going to be another tranche of victims,” one Republican senator said. “I’m not sure that we’re there yet. I don’t know that this deal works practically, so regardless of what may occur in the waning hours of the Biden administration, I believe that there are going to be additional requirements for the new administration to impose.”

“If we’re not getting basic concessions like every hostage returned or other guarantees, then what are we getting out of this Biden deal? I don’t see how it is sustainable if Hamas is still in the picture,” another GOP senator told JI. 

Those who responded optimistically to the developments largely focused on Trump’s influence in moving the deal along after multiple failed efforts to bring the remaining hostages home. They did not, however, praise the deal itself. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that he hadn’t been tracking the most recent developments, “but obviously, any news that suggests we’re coming closer to a resolution in that part of the world would be welcome news.”

Asked if he was confident Trump and Witkoff wouldn’t endorse a deal that hurt Israel, Thune answered affirmatively. “I haven’t followed closely, but I’m aware of some of the conversations that have been engaged in around those issues. Yes, I am confident. I think President Trump and Mr. Witkoff will be very careful to ensure that Israel’s interests are protected and preserved.”

Another GOP senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told JI, “I’m not worried about Trump accepting a deal that isn’t strong enough for Israel, because I can’t imagine [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu would feel that kind of pressure to take a weak deal.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) says he worried that Biden, Blinken and Sullivan would take any deal as they depart the White House because they were “trying to create their legacy.” Regardless, he said he would get behind an agreement if Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, gave it their blessing. 

“Unless Trump and Rubio sign off on it, I wouldn’t support it. If they can look me in the eye and tell me that this does not hurt Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, then I would consider it,” Kennedy told JI.

Kennedy added that any deal must “keep that Philadelphi corridor secure, because that’s how the weapons are getting in. They’re coming in from Egypt.”

A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to JI’s request for comment.