US Presidential Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff spoke to Channel 12 News, about setting a schedule for the second stage of talks, “I’ve talked to the Israelis, the Qataris, and the Egyptians this morning about setting forth a schedule and pursuing it towards setting a schedule for the second phase and initiating the second phase talks. And everybody is receptive to that and hopefully that’s what’s going to be happening this week.”
He said: "President Trump wants the second stage to go forward if it resolves in hostages being released and lives being saved and it could lead to peace because that’s what his policy program is about. It’s about peace through strength.”
He added that "Hamas had threatened earlier in the week not to release any hostages, and guess what, ‘they back up and they released,’ so that’s a good thing, that happened in our view because the president made that threat. But we’re grateful for the fact that three people came out alive yesterday and hopefully that hostage release will continue this weekend.”
Witkoff concluded saying that, "he hopes and thinks that there are going to be talks in the near future."