An epic piece of paper in the White House: How was the ceasefire in Gaza conceived?

WashingtonDonald Trump had been sitting in the State Dining Room of the White House for over an hour, presiding over a roundtable discussion on how to go after the anti-fascist movement – now classified as a terrorist organization– in the country. The president listened to stories of alleged violence by left-wing activists told by influencers far-right activists who had been invited as journalists, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio burst dramatically into the room.

"By the way, we have Marco Rubio here. Please, Marco, come here," Trump said, as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who sat to the president's right, rose from her chair. "Nothing we should know about the Middle East?"

This was the question that would hang in the air for the next two hours until the agreement between Hamas and Israel was announced. The interruption of the event made it practically imminent. The president's team was executing a good live cliffhanger of those who trap the press and that Trump's television instinct knows how to exploit.

"That's why I'm here, Mr. President," Rubio replied, now sitting in Wiles's place, and pointed at the reporters, implying to the Republican that he needed to wait for the press to leave to explain the news.

Trump didn't seem nervous or in a hurry. The roundtable continued, and Rubio began writing on a piece of paper, which he passed to the president behind the back of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who sat between them. Bondi continued talking about the threat posed by anti-fascists to the country, but the news passed behind her. A bit more dramatic: Rubio stood up to speak in Trump's ear. It's not every day that you can recreate the historic scene of the moment when former President Bush was notified, in the middle of a school lecture, of the attack on the Twin Towers.

"Very close," the note read, with Rubio underlining the words. "We need you to approve the Truth Social post soon so you can announce the deal first." On Wednesday, ten minutes before seven in the evening, almost an hour and a half after the scene, Trump posted the Truth Social message announcing the agreement between Hamas and Israel for the first phase of the ceasefire.

The White House propaganda machine has already rushed to mythologize the moment of the interruption and sell the agreement as a peace without nuances. "The president of peace," reads one of the photographs shared by the press team, where Trump appears wearing a yellow tie, the color of the hostages. Despite the victory that represents a milestone for the Republican, one cannot speak of the end of the war, much less of peace. In January of this year, Trump already announced a ceasefire that also marked the beginning of the first phase of ending the conflict. A truce that Israel ended up breaking.

Although yesterday's interruption was intended to create a certain agitation, as if the flow of history were bursting into the midst of everyday fiction to turn everything upside down, the reality is that the scene tasted like a pre-cooked epic. Just before the roundtable began, Trump had already raised the alarm, saying he planned to travel to the Middle East this weekend and that they were "very close" to ending the war.

The agreement to end the war in Gaza comes ten days after Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the 20-point peace plan they had reached without the participation of the Palestinians or Hamas. It also comes 733 days after the war against the Palestinian people has been going on, 17 days after the majority of UN member states recognized the Palestinian state, and just one month after Israel bombed Qatar, an action for which Netanyahu eventually apologized to Doha during his final visit to the Oval Office. The White House was responsible for releasing the photograph of the Israeli prime minister speaking into his earpiece while Trump held the phone.

Precisely, the Israeli attack against Hamas negotiators who were in Doha to continue discussing the ceasefire in Gaza was the head through which the tangle of negotiations began to unravel, in which special envoy Steve Witkoff was still trying to find the formula that would allow the hostages to be released.

It was also a turning point for Trump: it put at risk the alliance with an important partner in the region – Qatar gave the tycoon a plane at the beginning of the year – and He was shaking up his son-in-law Jared Kushner's business dealings with the Qataris."I'm not enthusiastic," Trump said in a fairly subdued response.

Control the story

The following week, at the opening of the 80th UN General Assembly, the majority of UN member states recognized the Palestinian state, thus demonstrating the isolation of Washington and Tel Aviv. Although the media spotlight on the two-state solution conference was on the overwhelming majority, the key factor that spurred the US on was the intervention of France and Saudi Arabia.

The alliance of the two countries broke the monopoly that Washington had maintained until then in negotiations on the future of Gaza. Furthermore, it did so with an alternative plan that did propose recognizing the Palestinian state and ultimately handing over control to a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA). Before the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron had obtained a letter from PA President Mahmoud Abbas supporting a plan for the day after the war. in which Hamas would be disarmed and barred from holding public office and a transitional body of experts would be formed to govern Palestine under the umbrella of a reformed Palestinian Authority.

The initiative by both countries, which also had the support of numerous UN member states, caused Tel Aviv and Washington to rush to regain control of the narrative, and a week later, on September 29, Netanyahu appeared at the White House. Two key moments occurred again: the bilateral call with Doha, and the announcement that Israel had accepted a 20-point plan to end the war. All that remained was to get Hamas through the funnel.