Bishara Bahbah denies resigning from Trump’s Gaza negotiation team

Palestinian-American mediator Bishara Bahbah denied on Sunday widely circulating reports that he has resigned from the US negotiating team working on Israel’s war on Gaza.

According to Israeli media, Bahbah said he was never an official member of the team.

He later wrote in a Facebook post: "False news was reported about me in Israel. I am still actively working to end the brutal war in Gaza".

He added that he is ready to assist US President Donald Trump in ending the war on Gaza and that he served as mediator after being asked to by the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

He went on to deny that there were disagreements between him and Witkoff which allegedly caused his departure, clarifying that he has "enormous respect" for him.

On Saturday, Israeli media reported that Bahbah resigned despite Hamas being close to agreeing to the terms of a proposed ceasefire deal, and that Bahbah was frustrated with the talks collapsing.

The reports added that Bahbah felt that Witkoff ignored progress made with Hamas and followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline approach, which in turn ruined any prospects of a ceasefire being agreed.

Days earlier, in a post, Bahbah wrote: "I am not a mediator in the full sense but share your suffering. My role is to carry your voice to all those responsible—big and small. I have not forgotten you and will not forget. Ceasefire talks are currently stalled."

The mediator, months earlier, called for a 70-day truce and the phased release of 10 captives held in Gaza. The proposal was rejected by an Israeli official, saying that Tel Aviv would not accept Hamas’ conditions.

He has been a key figure in negotiations, with his efforts helping secure the release of the captive Edan Alexander. He has close ties and communication with Palestinian officials and considers it home, despite living in the US.

Earlier this year, Bahbah said his role came to him "by chance" when, in April, he received a phone call from senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, who asked him to relay a message to American officials.

"That's what I did," Bahbah told Israel's Channel 12.

Bahbah has since become Hamas's primary interlocutor in a series of unofficial negotiations involving the US, Israel, and the group's political leadership.

Born in 1958 in occupied East Jerusalem, Bahbah’s family fled to Jordan during the Nakba in 1948 and later resettled permanently in the United States in the 1970s.

After completing a PhD in finance at Harvard, where he would later teach and serve as associate director of the Middle East Institute, Bahbah began a career that straddled finance, political analysis, and Palestinian advocacy.

He was part of the Palestinian delegation to the 1992–1993 Arab-Israeli peace talks and has remained a vocal supporter of the two-state solution. However, in recent years, his political affiliations had shifted.

Once a Democrat voter, Bahbah broke with the party over former President Joe Biden's handling of the war on Gaza.

"I became a Republican. We’ve had enough of Joe Biden and his complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza," he said in a June 2024 interview.