CNN
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The US has been talking with Hamas through an American intermediary in Doha this week in hopes of brokering an Israel-Gaza ceasefire agreement, according to a source familiar with the matter, as US officials say President Donald Trump is growing increasingly frustrated with Israel’s handling of the conflict.
The talks have been led on the US side by Bishara Bahbah, the American-Palestinian who led the group “Arab Americans for Trump” during the 2024 presidential campaign and who has been working on behalf of the administration, the source said.
Bahbah remotely exchanged messages with Hamas earlier this year in what became a critical backchannel to secure Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, the source said.
Israel also began indirect talks with Hamas in the Qatari capital on Saturday, and working level dialogue continues. But bolstering the line between the Trump administration and Hamas could give US officials a clearer sense of Hamas’s position, particularly as Trump’s frustrations have mounted. In the past, the US has gone through Qatar and Egypt to correspond with Hamas.
“It tells me that they think they have a real negotiation happening. They want their own Hamas channel, not through Qatar or Egypt. That is an indicator that they think they can cut through the issues more effectively and also that they think they can influence Hamas,” said Dennis Ross, a former US envoy to the Middle East who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
But some other regional experts are skeptical that this channel could lead to a breakthrough, given that Bahbah has limited experience and the Hamas decision makers are based in Gaza. But they argue it underscores that Trump is willing to work around Israel.
“I am not sure if this is a sign of desperation or confusion,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Maybe they see him as a window into Hamas thinking, it is certainly plausible.”
The growing frustrations among Trump and his top aides with Israel boil down to a key issue: the president wants the war to end – and soon. Trump, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, has been “annoyed” on several occasions with the pace of talks.
And Netanyahu, they fear, is not ready to deal.
“The president obviously wants a deal,” a person close to Trump told CNN. “It’s becoming more clear as talks continue that Bibi isn’t quite there.”
With Israel launching renewed strikes in Gaza, Vice President JD Vance opted not to visit the country over the weekend following his trip to Italy – a decision sources said was driven in part by logistics, and in part because his presence could have been viewed as a dramatic endorsement of the attacks.
“It would be hard to view the US as truly independent if he had gone,” the official added, calling it “an overly generous signal of support for what Israel is doing.”
Axios first reported on Trump’s frustrations and the reasoning behind Vance’s decision to skip a stop in Israel.
The sources cautioned that Trump’s frustrations do not amount to a change in posture in the United States’ support of Israel, a country which the president continues to view as one of America’s strongest allies. Nor is Trump privately pressuring Israel to halt its renewed military operation in the Gaza strip, said a source familiar with the matter.
National Security Council Spokesman Max Bluestein argued in a statement to CNN that it “is absolutely false” that the administration is frustrated with Israel.
“Israel has had no better friend than President Trump. We continue to work closely with our ally Israel to ensure that remaining hostages in Gaza are freed, that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, and that every opportunity for regional economic prosperity – especially the expansion of the Abraham Accords – is exploited. As Secretary [Marco] Rubio explained over the weekend, ‘What the President is saying is he doesn’t want to end the war until Hamas is defeated,’” Bluestein said.
Trump has shown a willingness to approach US foreign policy moves without direct adherence to Israel in recent months, including the announcement of a ceasefire with the Houthis – that did not include strikes on Israel and continued Iran deal talks while Israel has pushed for strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.
“There is a litany of actions lately reflecting that Trump will do what he thinks is in the US interest and Israeli considerations aren’t foremost in his mind. It’s not reflecting a break necessarily with Israel but it’s an effort to put energy into US interests,” Ross said.
Keeping US interests front and center – especially efforts that Trump wants to pursue in the region more broadly – the administration remains focused on trying to secure a Gaza ceasefire.
Bahbah has been coordinating his efforts with Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy who has also been directly in touch with Netanyahu and his aides. Witkoff recently put forward a new proposal to both Israel and Hamas that could serve as the foundation to getting both sides to agree to another ceasefire, Trump administration officials said.
One of the officials said that the US wants humanitarian aid to continue flowing into Gaza, something the Israelis acquiesced to on Sunday after blocking aid into the strip for nearly 11 weeks.
Israel “can achieve their objective of defeating Hamas while still allowing aid to enter in sufficient quantities,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
“You have this acute, immediate challenge of food and aid not reaching people, and you have existing distribution systems that could get them there,” Rubio told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Asked if it is an emergency humanitarian situation, Rubio conceded it is.
“Ultimately, I think we all see the same images,” he said.
The Trump administration was also pleased with how the talks with Hamas to release Alexander, the last known living American hostage in Gaza, unfolded in recent weeks. Instead of shutting down the channel between Hamas and Bahbah, they elevated it, signing off on in-person talks in Doha.
“His release was widely viewed internally as a goodwill gesture,” a White House official told CNN, adding that they saw the move as a key opportunity to draw Israel and Hamas back to the negotiating table.
But just days later, Israeli military forces moved into northern and southern Gaza as part of the “Gideon’s Chariots” operation, which Israel warned would take place if Hamas did not agree to a deal to release hostages. The fresh attacks did little to reassure US officials that a potential ceasefire deal was on the horizon.
But Trump’s frustrations with Netanyahu began even before the war took another deadly turn this week, the sources familiar with the matter said. One such instance was when the Israeli Prime Minister met privately with the president’s then-National Security Adviser, Michael Waltz, at the White House to discuss military options against Iran prior to a scheduled meeting in the Oval Office with Trump.
The meeting, first reported by the Washington Post, has been cited as a key point of Trump’s frustration with Waltz, who was later ousted from his position. But a source familiar with the matter said Trump also took issue with Netanyahu potentially trying to influence Waltz on a sensitive topic before raising it with Trump directly.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
