What is the current status of Trump's proposed deal between Israel and Hamas — and why did Netanyahu reject it?
Less than two weeks before this episode aired, Donald Trump was promoting a plan he described as a major breakthrough: Hamas would disarm, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since rejected the deal outright. The core deadlock is straightforward — neither Hamas nor Israel is willing to go first in the disarmament and withdrawal process, leaving Trump's peace efforts at a significant standstill.
The proposal represented one of the more ambitious diplomatic bets of Trump's second term, framing mutual de-escalation in Gaza as achievable through a sequenced agreement. But the sequencing itself became the fatal obstacle. Israel refused to commit to military withdrawal before Hamas disarmed, while Hamas demanded the opposite order of events. With both sides unwilling to bear the risk of moving first, the deal collapsed before it could take hold.
The failure is a notable setback for an administration that had positioned itself as capable of delivering peace deals where others had not. As reported on Up First from NPR, this Gaza impasse emerged alongside separate tensions with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz — a pattern that signals growing difficulty for Trump in translating dealmaking rhetoric into durable diplomatic outcomes across the Middle East.
"It looks to me like the Iranian regime wants to turn President Trump into Jimmy Carter. It wants to impose the kind of humiliation on President Trump that they imposed on President Carter. And I think they're pretty much succeeding at that."
— As heard on Up First from NPR, August 11, 2026See also
Cori Schake, who served in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, told NPR that Iran has rightly assessed Trump's desperation, and that the US finds itself at a significant disadvantage in the standoff.
Trump told reporters that the United States Navy has control of the Strait of Hormuz, describing it as an "infallible blockade" and a "steel wall" through which nothing passes without US permission.
Talks have deteriorated rapidly after President Trump demanded Iran pay reparations for damage inflicted on the US over a 50-year period, citing events such as the USS Cole attack.