United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has drafted a new proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The deal includes a 60-day pause in fighting. Hamas would release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies; in exchange, Israel would release 125 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, 1,111 Gazans detained after Oct. 7, 2023, and 180 bodies of Gazans. U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly would guarantee Israel’s adherence to the deal.

Israel has accepted the proposal. A source told Axios that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told relatives of the hostages “that Israel is ready to move forward with a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza on the basis of Witkoff’s proposal.” At the time of writing, Hamas is still considering the deal. But a source told the bbc that Hamas plans to reject it, reportedly because the deal favors Israel and does not guarantee an end to the war.

That the U.S. is pushing for this ceasefire now is noteworthy. Israel recently restarted its ground invasion of Gaza to vanquish Hamas completely. Israel had begun allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza again, but through a U.S. charity rather than the United Nations. Hamas has been confiscating UN aid for its own purposes for years and selling what it doesn’t use to Gazans at exorbitant prices to fund its war.

Israel’s renewed effort has been cutting Hamas’s supply lines. “Hamas sustains its rule with a flow of salaries and patronage, which depend on its profitable control of aid,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “Ending that could transform the war, so Hamas fights the new aid plan to keep control.”

According to the Times of Israel, this proposed ceasefire is supposed to lead to negotiations for a permanent end to the war. It says the third clause of Witkoff’s proposal deals with humanitarian aid: “Aid will be sent into Gaza immediately once Hamas agrees to the ceasefire agreement. Whatever agreement is reached on aid to the civilian population will be respected throughout the course of the agreement. Aid will be distributed through agreed upon channels that will include the United Nations and Red Crescent.”

In other words, this deal would thwart Israel’s mission to end Hamas’s rule. Prime Minister Netanyahu is going along with it so far—likely because he feels he has little choice.

On May 25, President Trump told the media that he wanted the Gaza war concluded quickly. “We want to see if we can stop that,” he said. “And Israel, we’ve been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as quickly as possible.” A White House official told Axios last week, “The president is frustrated about what is happening in Gaza. He wants the war to end, he wants the hostages to come home, he wants aid to go in, and he wants to start rebuilding Gaza.”

Many in the Israeli public at least somewhat agree. A recent poll suggests 82 percent of Israelis support a mass relocation of Arabs out of Gaza. Another poll suggests 39 percent of Israelis think the military’s response to Hamas has been appropriate, but 34 percent believe it isn’t enough. Repeated polling suggests a majority of Israelis prioritize freeing the hostages through negotiations rather than defeating Hamas. An editorial in the Jerusalem Post summed up the national mood with the following headline: “After 600 Days Only One Victory Matters: Bringing Home All Hostages.”

The war has continued this long because the U.S., international community and even many in Israel are pressuring the Israeli government to stand down. The war could have concluded months ago if Netanyahu had received the go-ahead to finish the job.

Freeing hostages is a worthy goal. But this back-and-forth on ceasefire then no ceasefire is prolonging the war. The more lifelines Israel is pressured to throw to Hamas, the longer Hamas will stay in power and be allowed to regroup—this means more dead Israelis and a more precarious security situation.

When President Trump pressured Israel to accept a ceasefire deal in January, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote:

Israel was so close to victory—and now, suddenly, it has lost. It had nearly destroyed Hamas’s terrorists, and now, instead, it has emboldened them. …

This is a catastrophic, monumental mistake!

This deal has exposed Mr. Trump’s flaws in a way that none of us want to see. Something is dreadfully wrong here.

What Mr. Trump has done here is going to plague him for the rest of his tenure in office! Just watch and see if it doesn’t happen that way—unless he dramatically changes course.

Mr. Flurry summarized the U.S.’s actions in his title: “President Trump Betrayed Israel.”

Since that deal with Hamas, Trump’s other foreign-policy ventures have also floundered. He vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day—which hasn’t happened yet. He started nuclear negotiations with Iran that sound eerily similar to President Barack Obama’s. America’s enemies have learned from the Hamas example that President Trump is a pushover when it comes to international affairs.

Mr. Flurry also commented on the Israeli public’s willingness to exchange terrorists for hostages: A poll found “64 percent of Israelis support releasing terrorists with ‘blood on their hands’ if that brings hostages home. This shows that the people are far weaker than they should be. … Such deals encourage more hostage-taking and put more terrorists back on the street, who go on to kill more Jews.”

Officials in D.C. and Jerusalem may think Witkoff’s deals are the best way to manage bad situations, but they are only going to bring greater problems on both America and Israel.

To learn more, read “President Trump Betrayed Israel.”