How we freed Oct 7 hostages, by the man in the room with Hamas

I n August 2024, an end to the war in Gaza seemed agonisingly close. Brett McGurk, point man on the Middle East for President Biden, had helped drag the various parties to within touching distance of a deal. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be exchanged for the remaining hundred or so hostages in Gaza. Border crossings would be reopened. Gazans would be able to return home. A ceasefire beckoned. Then McGurk received a call from William Burns, director of the CIA. Six Israeli hostages had been found slain in a tunnel under Rafah, all of them shot multiple times. Most commented 1 The flag that gives moral licence to hatred Columnists 455 comments 2 Labour risks losing working class over net zero, says business secretary Politics 362 comments 3 Kemi Badenoch’s Disraeli vibes are mighty tempting Columnists 172 comments 4 Peter Brookes’s Times cartoon: October 10, 2026 Cartoons 117 comments 5 England a step closer to World Cup — but look far from champions-elect Women's football 13 comments These deaths were not a tragic accident. After the bodies were found, Hamas released propaganda videos showing some of the hostages speaking their final words. A film of one, Hersh Goldberg-Polin , urging his parents to stay strong, was released during his funeral. The six hostages, clockwise from top left: Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi The deal was doomed — and McGurk realised that a major shift would now be required for the war to end. The Americans should “walk away until [Yahya] Sinwar is dead”, he told Biden. As long as the October 7 mastermind was alive, there would be no agreement. “We don’t have a plan B,” said Burns. Top stories 1 Starbucks ‘explores takeover’ of Chipotle Mexican Grill US business Three years on from October 7, the consequences of that shocking massacre are still transforming our world. In his fascinating new book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, McGurk brings us the first draft of this history, offering the best insight I have seen as to what really went on. Why the war and the hostage crisis continued for as long as they did. And why deal after deal fell apart, as the one did on that grim Saturday in August 2024. Advertisement McGurk takes us inside the room as he and team Biden attempt to corral the belligerent Israelis, a self-destructive Hamas, Janus-faced Qataris and obdurate Egyptians into a deal that brings an end to the agonising war and brings the hostages home. Brett McGurk, left, in Syria in 2017 DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES For more than 20 years, McGurk, 53, a lawyer turned negotiator and political adviser, has worked on US policy in the Middle East. He advised the Bush administration on Iraq, led the fight against Isis for two presidents, Obama and Trump, and ran the Hamas hostage negotiations for Biden. The last endeavour proved an emotional wrench like no other. Top stories 1 ‘My husband’s family want us to pay £500 towards his sister’s holiday’ Ask Times Money 2 Mortgage rates dip after weeks of painful rises Mortgages “This was the most complex and horrific crisis I’ve ever dealt with,” says McGurk, who spoke to me for an hour on Friday. “We were all making decisions in a realm of deep uncertainty: Yahya Sinwar, Biden, Netanyahu, Ayatollah Khamenei, Hasan Nasrallah. You’re nearly there, then Hamas puts another crazy demand on the table.” Many of the men involved in those negotiations are now dead at the hands of the Israel Defence Forces. But Netanyahu is still there, facing a general election later this month in which he may yet again defy the political obituarists. McGurk rejects the depiction of Netanyahu as an entirely selfish man solely interested in his own political survival. But dealing with “Bibi” was never easy. “I always found him extremely confident in his assumptions,” says McGurk. “If you try to tell him he’s seeing it wrong, it’s tough to make that case. He’s a complex man.” Advertisement Brett McGurk and Binyamin Netanyahu in West Jerusalem, July 2024 Koby Gideon/GPO/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images Getting the Israeli prime minister to agree to proposals was challenging because he always had two goals: getting the hostages out, but also ensuring that Hamas was no longer in a position of power in Gaza when the war ended. “Throughout the crisis, those goals were often in competition with each other,” says McGurk. However obstinate and tricky he found Netanyahu, Hamas were a tougher proposition. When the war’s first ceasefire and hostage exchange ended on December 1, 2023, it was because Hamas refused to release the young female hostages that were due to come out next. McGurk reflects on a dark rationale for this reluctance, which emerged when the women were finally released and described sexual assaults in captivity. Freed Israeli hostages are delivered home by helicopter in Petah Tikav during the truce that ended on December 1, 2023 Alexi J Rosenfeld/Getty Images On other occasions, Hamas refused to provide complete lists of which hostages it was willing to release. “At times it was me and just a few people in a room, as close as anyone in the world to ending this defining crisis,” says McGurk. “You thought, ‘There has to be a key we can turn’ — but it proved exceedingly difficult.” McGurk observes that we in the West often view the war exclusively through the lens of Israel’s conduct, a mistake that can embolden Hamas. “Israel did plenty that you can criticise, but sometimes Hamas is almost written out of the story,” he says. “They were a principal actor with agency. Sinwar spent 20 years preparing for this , building a military infrastructure under Gaza. It’s really hard to fully appreciate what that labyrinth was like. There’s never been a military conflict with something like this, ever. Sinwar made clear that civilians cannot go into those tunnels.” Advertisement He adds: “On some level, Hamas itself started this war with the understanding that the Gazans they purport to represent would be caught in this horrendous maelstrom.” Yahya Sinwar in Gaza City, 2021 Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty Images McGurk does not believe Sinwar gave the Iranians a heads up about October 7, but the Hamas leader did hope that the massacre would spark an all-out regional war, leading to Israel’s destruction. In this he failed, but he has achieved some of his goals. Such was the fury of Israel’s response, its standing in the world has fallen considerably as a result. Today, Sinwar is dead, while Hamas is heavily depleted and no longer in total control of Gaza. But it is not defeated. “So long as they are clinging to power, there is no way forward on a political horizon, or tragically for the people of Gaza,” says McGurk. An enduring frustration of McGurk’s is that he was not able to make arrangements for the civilians of Gaza to flee the battleground. “Every other conflict I’ve worked on, as horrible as it was, we worked to get civilians out of the line of fire,” he says. “In Mosul, we got half the civilians out. In Raqqa, tens of thousands left the city. In Gaza, there was nowhere for people to go.” Despite fears that Gazans might never be able to return, a fate that befell many Palestinian refugees after the war of 1948, McGurk thinks they should have been allowed to escape. “I’m fully cognisant of the historical backdrop, but yes, the civilians should have had a place to go, with guarantees they can return. It was never even really discussed.” Advertisement The ruins of Jabalia in northern Gaza, January 2025 MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS McGurk is unusually generous to the Trump administration, which helped close the eventual deal to end the war and bring the last hostages home. After Trump won the election in November 2024, McGurk had to prepare to hand the baton on to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who had been deputised to take over on this issue. By this point, Israel had defeated Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, killed Sinwar and damaged Iran’s missile launchers. “I knew we had an opening to go for the deal again, but we had to work together,” he says. McGurk met with Witkoff shortly after Trump’s election. Vice-president elect JD Vance joined briefly. As McGurk recounts in his book: “He asked what we were talking about, and when we said the Middle East, he told us that was his cue to leave. ( Run as fast as you can , I thought.)” But Witkoff and company helped get their deal over the line. The first of the final tranche of hostages were released on Biden’s last day in office; the rest came out under Trump, who naturally claimed all the credit. “We wouldn’t have been able to get the deal without the two teams working together,” says McGurk. “It really was a model for coming together in a polarised Washington.” Steve Witkoff addresses a crowd in Tel Aviv after the ceasefire and final hostage release of October 2025 RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS The war is over now and the hostages are home, but so much remains unresolved. Gazans are still living in appalling squalor. Hamas remains a going concern. Israel still has its tanks parked on Gazan territory. McGurk can see only a “narrow” path to any form of resolution, based on the UN security council resolution that Hamas must disarm and Israel leave Gaza entirely when a new Palestinian authority is put in place. “What you need to appreciate is that, after October 7, Israel will never allow threats to gather on its border again,” he says. “It will never allow Hamas to reconstitute, never allow Hezbollah to mass 30,000 troops on the border. I wouldn’t defend all their actions, but those are legitimate national security aims.” Advertisement There is a growing line of argument in American politics, particularly among Democrats, for the US to distance itself from Israel and punish it for overstepping the mark. McGurk disagrees. “I believe that to influence Israeli conduct, the better approach is to be working with them, because the threats are there regardless,” he says. “And they are going to act on them.” Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages by Brett McGurk is out on October 22 (Crown, £26)