PresidentDonald Trumpis pushing a comprehensive "all or nothing"ceasefirebetweenIsraelandHamasthat would see the end of hostilities and all the hostages returned, his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told hostage families over the weekend. "No piecemeal deals. That doesn't work,"Witkoffcould be heard saying in audio leaked to the Israeli news website Ynet. NBC News was not able to independently verify the audio, but two people who were in the room corroborated the comments. "Now, we think that we have to shift this negotiation to all or nothing. Everybody comes home," Witkoff says later in the recording of the meeting with hostage families, which was also reported on byThe New York Times. Daniel Lifshitz said Witkoff had said the U.S. was looking to "shift from partial deal to a full-scale deal," but did not expand on exactly how that would happen. "He spoke about shifting because there is nothing else to do now," Lifshitz told NBC News on Monday. He said Witkoff spoke with hostage families for nearly three hours. A second person in the meeting also confirmed the audio recording. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Witkoff's meeting with hostage families. Daniel Lifshitz's grandparents Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz were among the around 250 people taken hostage in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Yocheved Liftshitz, 86, a peace activist, wasreleased by Hamas later in October 2023. Oded Liftshitz'sbody was returned to his family earlier this yearas part of the ceasefire, which lasted two months before Israeli forces resumed their campaign in Gaza in March. He was 84. Images released by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, appearing to show visibly gaunt Israeli hostagesEvyatar DavidandRom Braslavski, have also sparked alarm among hostage families about the conditions of their loved ones. Details of Witkoff's meeting with dozens of hostage families emerged as Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahusaid he would convene his security Cabinet to "instruct" the Israeli military on how to achieve the war's aims. More than60,800 people have been killedsince the war began, with hundreds killed over the span of days, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Netanyahu and Witkoff have said repeatedly that Hamas is not interested in agreeing to a truce. Hamas says it does want an agreement but continues to call for a Palestinian state with a capital in east Jerusalem, which is among a handful of concessions Israel says it cannot make. Over the weekend, far-right Israeli National Security MinisterItamar Ben-Gvircalled for Israel to "conquer the entire Gaza Strip" and encourage "voluntary migration" from the territory. He made the comments in a videostatementpublished to his X account, repeating similar calls he has made in recent months. During his visit to Israel, Witkoff made abrief and rare stop in Gazaamid growing starvation in the enclave and rising numbers of deaths from malnutrition. Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, escorted by the Israeli military, stopped at an aid distribution site in southern Gaza run by the U.S. and Israel-backedGaza Humanitarian Foundation. Hundreds of desperate aid-seekers have been killed, largely by Israeli forces, trying to access GHF's aid sites, according to witnesses, doctors and officials in Gaza. "It was a PR stunt, a controlled visit supervised and dictated by the Israeli military," Ellie Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,said of Witkoff and Huckabee's visit. "What they saw was not the reality." Nearly 170 people in Gaza — more than 90 of them children — have died from malnutrition since the war began, according to the Palestinian health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The world's leading body on hunger, theIntegrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC,warned last weekthat the "worst-case scenario of famine" was playing out in Gaza under Israel's military offensive and aid restrictions. Over the weekend, the World Health Organization led condemnation of an Israeli attack on thePalestine Red Crescent Society'sheadquarters inGazathat killed a staff member and injured several other people. Thesociety,which provides emergency medical services in the besieged enclave, said in a statement that artillery struck the upper floors of its building in the southern city ofKhan Younisearly on Sunday. The building was clearly marked with its emblem, it said. The PRCS says at least 51 staff members and volunteers have been killed since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage.
