Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dramatically interrupted a summit held by Donald Trump at the White House to hand him an urgent note on the Gaza peace deal.
‘I was just given a note by the Secretary of State saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly,’ Trump told reporters gathered at the roundtable on Wednesday.
The frantically scrawled note was caught on camera. It read: ‘Very close. We need you to approve a post on Truth Social soon, so you can announce the deal first.’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later confirmed that Trump ‘is considering heading to the Middle East’ as soon as Friday.
No announcement has yet been made on his Truth Social platform.
It comes as Hamas and Israel remain locked in high-stakes negotiations in Egypt. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are attending the talks.
‘”Peace for the Middle East,” that’s a beautiful phrase, and we hope it’s going to come true, but it’s very close, and they’re doing very well,’ Trump said earlier.
‘We have a great team over there, great negotiators, and they’re, unfortunately, great negotiators on the other side also. But it’s something I think that will happen.’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio interrupts a summit held by Donald Trump at the White House to hand him an urgent note on the Gaza peace deal
The note handed by Rubio to Trump appeared on camera as the president read it over. ‘Very close. We need you to approve a post on Truth Social soon, so you can announce the deal first,’ it says
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that he had received ‘encouraging’ signs and hailed the support of Trump, whose 20-point peace proposal forms the basis of the talks.
Hamas too expressed ‘optimism’ over the indirect discussions with its foe Israel.
‘The mediators are making great efforts to remove any obstacles to the implementation of the ceasefire, and a spirit of optimism prevails among all parties,’ senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said from the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, where talks kicked off on Monday.
The terror group submitted a list of prisoners it wants to be released in the first phase of the truce ‘in accordance with the agreed-upon criteria and numbers,’ Nunu added.
In exchange, Hamas is set to release 47 hostages, both alive and dead, it seized in its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, according to Israeli officials.
Among the bodies held by the terrorist group is an IDF soldier killed in the Strip in 2014.
Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the White House on September 29
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli military strike in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Negotiations are focused on the mechanisms to halt the conflict, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the swap deal, the Palestinian militant group said.
But officials on all sides urged caution over the prospects for a rapid agreement.
Hamas wants a permanent, comprehensive ceasefire, a complete pullout of Israeli forces and the immediate start of a comprehensive reconstruction process under the supervision of a Palestinian ‘national technocratic body’.
Israel, for its part, wants Hamas to disarm, which the group rejects.
American officials suggest they want to initially focus talks on a halt to the fighting and the logistics of how the Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israel would be freed.
Once all hostages are returned, Israel will free 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, plus 1,700 Gazans arrested since October 7, including all women and children.
For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 dead Gazans, the Trump plan says.
In the absence of a ceasefire, Israel has pressed on with its offensive in Gaza, increasing its international isolation.
According to the Hamas-run Gazan authorities, some 67,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault.
It followed the October 7 attack, when 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages.
