Steve Witkoff helped negotiate the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal. His visit to Gaza on Wednesday was the first by a senior U.S. official in more than a decade.

Witkoff, who is Jewish and who has been friends with Trump since the 1980s when he bought Trump a sandwich after they worked on a real estate transaction, has no Middle East diplomatic experience.

Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed his nominee for Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to relay a “stark message” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week: “Make the deal,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Follow NBC News live updates for the latest coverage of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

Hundreds of Jenin residents left their homes on Thursday, prompted by messages from drones fitted with loudspeakers, witnesses said, as the military demolished a number of houses on the third day of a major operation in the West Bank city.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began in Gaza on January 19. Hamas released three Israeli hostages on the same day, the first of 33 hostages expected to be freed during the first phase of the deal.

A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip took effect on Sunday after a nearly three-hour delay, pausing a 15-month-old war that has brought devastation and seismic political change to the Middle East.

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli warplanes and artillery attacked the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday and Palestinian medics said eight people were killed shortly after Israel and Hamas missed a deadline for a ceasefire that could pave the way for halting the Middle East's most devastating conflict in years.

With Israel having decapitated both Hezbollah and Hamas, his coalition strengthened by Sa’ar, and with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff mounting pressure ... guerilla attacks in Northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun alone across the last week, following ...

Bulletin: ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 9 AM EST FRIDAY... * WHAT...Freezing rain expected. Total ice accumulations up to a tenth of an inch ...

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On its second try, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a single vote, in a process some Jewish groups said was ...

The Justice Department has charged leaders of a transnational white supremacist terror group with urging their followers to commit terror attacks against Jews and ...