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

Journalists began to gather in the hall on the ground floor, expecting to witness the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thaniannounces that he and the other mediators have finally reached an agreement. Two American envoys joined Sheikh Mohammed as he prepared his statement.

A new problem suddenly appeared, 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 a last-minute request of its own. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to clarify the names of several Palestinian prisoners that Israel will release during the ceasefire.

While his associates were trying to solve the latest problem, Sheikh Mohammed sat in his office with Brett McGurkPresident Biden’s chief negotiator, and Steve Witkoffrepresentative of President-elect Donald J. Trump, hoping their efforts are not in vain.

This account of the final days of the talks is based on interviews with nine people who participated in or were briefed on the talks, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The truce that was finally announced at a belated news briefing, hours after Israel’s new request, differed little from the versions promoted for much of the past year by mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the Biden administration, whose representatives have met frequently with the warring parties in Cairo. , Doha and several European capitals during 2024.

What pushed the deal over the line last week was an unlikely partnership between envoys from the current and future US presidents, who worked in tandem with the Qatari prime minister in marathon late-night meetings. While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump competed for credit, the reality is that their representatives were both crucial to the final push, each using different approaches to push Israel’s leadership toward the deal, while Sheikh Mohammed focused on Hamas.

Starting last Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian delegations, as well as two American ones, spent long days at the prime minister’s compound, near old market in the center of Doha. The delegations, which do not speak directly to each other, sat in different rooms on different floors, with Qatari and Egyptian officials relaying messages to the two sides.

“They are not natural partners, but the combination of these three people and the three worlds they represent was the only thing that could have accomplished this,” said Thomas R. Nides, a former US ambassador to Israel. You needed pressure from all sides – pressure from the Arab world, pressure from Biden and pressure from Trump.

It was Mr. McGurk, a veteran diplomat long focused on the Middle East, who helped oversee U.S. mediation efforts since the first weeks of the war and who helped craft the complicated details of the deal nearly a year ago. It was Mr. Witkoff, a real estate investor he plays golf with Mr. Trump, who was instrumental in persuading Israel to finally agree to the content of the agreement. It was Sheikh Mohammed who convinced Hamas to make key compromises, while providing both sides with office space where they could negotiate the final details.

The deal they struck calls for a pause in fighting of at least six weeks, during which Hamas agreed to gradually release 33 hostages captured during the group’s attack on Israel at the start of the war on October 7, 2023. In exchange, Israel pledged to gradually release approximately 1,000 Palestinians prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences. killing and allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans to return to their homes.

The deal is very similar to proposals the two sides nearly agreed to between May and July 2024. Those talks broke down amid disputes over whether to strike a permanent or temporary truce, whether and how to allow displaced Gazans to return home, and when Israeli troops could withdraw from Gaza, and the number of hostages Hamas could release in the first weeks of the ceasefire.

As a result, the war was prolonged, leading to the killing of tens of thousands more Palestinians, as well as several Israeli hostages.

Critics accused Mr Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks to avoid the collapse of his ruling coalition, which included lawmakers opposed to the deal. Others said Hamas had deliberately dragged out the talks in the hope that Israel could become entrenched in a wider regional conflict with Hamas allies in Lebanon, Iran and Yemen. At times, Qatar has refused to continue mediation, accusing both sides of half-hearted engagement.

Momentum returned after Mr Trump’s re-election in November, even before the president-elect warned Hamas that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration. He appointed Mr. Witkoff, who had no diplomatic experience, but growing business relations in Qataras his envoy in the Middle East. Mr. Witkoff played golf with Mr. Trump in September during, according to law enforcement officials assassination of the former and future president.

Members of the Biden administration quietly contacted Mr. Witkoff to see if they could work together to negotiate a cease-fire, according to two people familiar with the talks. Despite vast political gaps between their bosses, Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff began to coordinate, sometimes speaking several times a day, according to one of the people.

However, a large gap between Hamas and Israel remained. Just before Christmas, with only a few weeks left in Biden’s presidency, Mr. McGurk returned from a trip to Doha in despair. He told the Qataris that he would not return unless Hamas gave a clear signal that it was interested in a deal, according to two people familiar with his thinking.

That moment happened in the first days of January, according to two people involved in the process. Sheikh Mohammed convinced Hamas to confirm the names of more than 30 hostages to be released during the first six weeks of the truce, a long-awaited move that suggested the group was genuinely interested in a deal, the people said. The reason for Hamas’s shift remains unclear, but analysts say Israel’s growing dominance over Hamas’ main allies, Hezbollah and Iran, has left the group feeling isolated, while its own losses on the Gaza battlefield have left them feeling weakened.

Mr. McGurk was informed of the discovery while attending his daughter’s birthday party at an indoor trampoline park on Jan. 4, according to two people familiar with the event. He left the party halfway through and immediately flew to Doha to meet with Sheikh Mohammed, his Egyptian counterparts and Israeli negotiators. Mr. Witkoff joined him on January 10, and the two agreed with Sheikh Mohammed that the Americans would jointly focus on lobbying Israel, while the prime minister would pressure Hamas.

The main remaining differences centered on the depth of the buffer zone Israel sought to maintain within Gaza’s borders, as well as the number of prisoners to be exchanged for wounded and sick hostages.

It was a short visit by Mr. Witkoff to Jerusalem last Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, which brought new progress, according to four officials briefed on the meeting.

Mr. Witkoff sat with Mr. Netanyahu and senior Israeli officials in the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, and Mr. McGurk joined the discussion by phone.

The two Americans pressed Mr. Netanyahu to soften the last two major hurdles, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Mr. McGurk warned the Israeli leader that he risked losing his best chance for a deal. Then Mr. Witkoff applied the necessary pressure, stressing to Mr. Netanyahu that Mr. Trump wanted this deal done, the person said.

After the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to change his position, four officials said. He immediately ordered his four chief negotiators — including David Barnea, the head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, and Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence service — to go to Doha.

Over the next four days, Sheikh Mohammed hosted a series of marathon meetings, mostly in his personal office, as Hamas officials, Israeli negotiators, Egyptian intelligence and two Americans spoke with him, sometimes into the early hours of the morning.

The Israeli and Hamas teams, based on different floors, never saw each other; they took turns entering the prime minister’s office to find out the latest position of their enemy.

Progress has sometimes been hampered by the nature of Hamas’ command structure, which has required its leaders in Qatar to check certain details with their counterparts in Gaza, all of whom are in hiding and difficult to reach.

Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff also frequently visited their bosses; occasionally Mr. McGurk spoke with Mr. Biden, while Mr. Witkoff, just a few meters away, talked on the phone with Mr. Trump or his team, according to a person familiar with the scene.

“We negotiated word by word, sentence by sentence and formula by formula,” said Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, minister of state at Qatar’s foreign ministry. “It becomes mentally and physically draining.”

The biggest breakthrough came close to midnight on Sunday night, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Sheikh Mohammed told the two Americans that a deal could be concluded if Israel made two more compromises, according to one of the people.

Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff walked together down the corridor to the room of the Israelis, where the negotiators were already talking on the phone with Mr. Netanyahu. Joining the call, the Americans told the Israeli leader that a deal could be reached if he agreed to slightly increase the number of prisoners involved in the exchange, as well as slightly reduce the depth of the buffer zone.

After a loud discussion in Hebrew between Mr. Netanyahu and his team, they reached a compromise.

The Americans returned to inform Sheikh Muhammad.

“We will come to an agreement,” the Qatari leader told the delegates, according to a person familiar with the scene.

After a year of failure, around midnight on Sunday, they thought they had a deal, subject to bickering over the fine final details.

However, Wednesday brought more friction. With a press briefing scheduled for the evening, Hamas suddenly sought to reopen the debate over how much land Israeli troops will continue to control along the Egyptian-Gaza border.

Then, after Egyptian and Qatari leaders convinced Hamas to back down, Israel sought greater clarity about which Palestinian prisoners would be released.

Thousands of miles away, in the Oval Office, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, sat with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, awaiting word from Mr. McGurk.

Although Sheikh Mohammed finally announced the deal on Wednesday night, the two sides are still not clarifying the identities of the last prisoners, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

But Mr. McGurk and Mr. The Witkoffs felt confident enough to inform their bosses that a truce would be reached, said one person familiar with the scene.

That latest row continued on Thursday, when Mr. McGurk and Mr. Witkoff finally left Qatar that night.

The deal was sealed – as was one of the most unlikely pairings in diplomatic history.

Aaron Boxerman and Ronen Bergman contributed reporting.