WASHINGTON — Brown University will pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations in a deal with the Trump administration that restores lost federal research funding and ends investigations into alleged discrimination, officials say.

The university also agreed to several concessions in line with US President Donald Trump’s political agenda. Brown will adopt the government’s definition of “male” and “female,” for example, and must remove any consideration of race from the admissions process.

Brown President Christina H. Paxson says the deal preserves Brown’s academic independence. The terms include a clause saying the government cannot dictate curriculum or the content of academic speech at Brown.

“The university’s foremost priority throughout discussions with the government was remaining true to our academic mission, our core values and who we are as a community at Brown,” Paxson writes.

It is the latest deal between an Ivy League school and the Trump administration, which has used its control of federal funding to push for reforms at colleges he decries as overrun by liberalism and antisemitism.

The deal has numerous similarities with one signed last week by Columbia University, which the government called a roadmap for other universities. Unlike that agreement, however, Brown’s does not include an outside monitor.

The three-year agreement with Brown restores dozens of suspended grants and contracts. It also calls for the federal government to reimburse Brown for $50 million in unpaid federal grant costs.

The settlement puts an end to three federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in Brown admissions, with no finding of wrongdoing. In a campus letter, Paxson anticipates questions about why the university would settle if it didn’t violate the law. She notes Brown has faced financial pressure from federal agencies along with “a growing push for government intrusion” in academics.

Brown agreed to several measures aimed at addressing allegations of antisemitism on its campus in Providence, Rhode Island. The school says it will renew partnerships with Israeli academics and encourage Jewish day school students to apply to Brown. By the end of this year, Brown must hire an outside organization — to be chosen jointly by Brown and the government — to conduct a campus survey on the climate for Jewish students.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris will recognize a Palestinian state in September set back talks that had been making progress between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on “some very touchy issues.”

Huckabee doesn’t specify what issues were being discussed during an interview on a Christian broadcaster, but appears to be referring to efforts to coax Israel into releasing over $2 billion in tax revenues that it has been withholding from the PA, which has severely hampered Ramallah’s ability to operate.

“We were not there yet. We were moving in the direction [of resolving these issues], and what [Macron] did [last] week blew it all off the table. We’re back to ground zero, and it’s a real setback,” Huckabee says.

The US envoy also claims that the French announcement was “one of the reasons” Hamas “became unreasonable” in the hostage talks.

Macron’s announcement came hours after the US and Israel decided to pull their negotiators from Doha amid frustration with Hamas’s latest response in the talks that was submitted earlier in the week.

“When Europe and other areas of the world decide they’re going to start telling Israel that it’s got to let Hamas stay in Gaza, or that it’s going to declare unilaterally a Palestinian state, the reaction in Israel is not to surrender,” Huckabee says. “We’ll just get stronger, tougher, and we’ll dig in.”

In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Huckabee says France would be of better assistance if it agreed to take in Palestinians from Gaza who want to leave the war-torn Strip.

Countries have largely refused to take in Gazans, since the start of the war, with some arguing that Israel has not committed to allowing those who leave the ability to return on a later date, while a majority of coalition members have expressed their support for building settlements in the Strip on top of the ruins of Palestinian towns.

In the Fox interview, Huckabee forcefully denies that there’s a rift between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

He says claims of a rift between the two leaders are “about as realistic as saying that I was personally responsible for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.”

The US envoy insists that ties between the two have never been stronger, particularly since the war with Iran.

“The disconnect is with the media [that] wants there to be an anti-Israel message that they keep getting across; but it’s a false message,” Huckabee says.

On Monday, Trump was asked if he was convinced by Netanyahu’s assurance that there is no starvation in Gaza. The US president responded, “not particularly,” adding that there is “real starvation” in the Strip and that “You can’t fake that.”

Huckabee acknowledges that there is suffering in Gaza but asserts that it’s not “as bad as some of the Europeans say.”

As negotiations with Hamas stall, Israel and the United States are now aligned on aiming for a comprehensive framework in place of a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal, a senior Israeli official told reporters during a Thursday briefing.

“There will be no more partial deals,” the official was quoted as saying, explaining that Israel and the US now concur on the need to “shift from a framework for the release of some of the hostages to a framework for the release of all of the hostages, the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.”

If actualized, it would mark a massive shift for Israel, which came up with the phased hostage deal framework during the first year of the war, as it enabled Israel to secure the release of some of its hostages, while maintaining the ability to resume the war — something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed in order to maintain his coalition, as far-right partners threatened to collapse the government if Israel agreed to a permanent ceasefire.

Hamas, for its part, has offered the release of all remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war, while rejecting calls to disarm. Netanyahu has also argued that prematurely ending the war would leave Hamas in power and able to regroup.

The potential shift in Israel’s approach came amid the latest impasse in hostage talks, which have largely stalled since Israel and the US pulled their negotiators from Doha last week due to frustration with Hamas’s response to the most recent phased ceasefire proposal.

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In exchange for forgoing its demand for an up front Israeli commitment to end the war, Hamas sought to limit the scope of Israel’s presence in Gaza during the 60-day truce under discussion, while also increasing the number of prisoners it wants in exchange for the 28 of the 50 remaining hostages who will be released through the agreement — conditions that were rejected by Israel.

On Thursday, an Arab diplomat and a second source involved in mediation efforts told The Times of Israel that Hamas negotiators in Doha have recently told mediators that they are uninterested in even resuming ceasefire negotiations until the hunger crisis in Gaza subsides.

Hours later, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported that two more Palestinians had died over the past day due to complications from malnutrition, bringing the total figure since the start of the war to 159. Ninety of those deaths were children and roughly half of the total deaths took place in the past month alone.

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Tensions were also at peak level between Hamas and Arab negotiating countries Egypt and Qatar. Hamas’s lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya accused Egypt last week of complicity in the humanitarian crisis, infuriating Cairo. The terror group is also angry at Qatar for signing onto a declaration at the UN earlier this week that called for Hamas to disarm and step down from power, the two sources say.

Even though they left Doha, Israeli negotiators still submitted to mediators on Tuesday night their response to the amendments requested by Hamas to the latest ceasefire proposal last week. The Israeli response rebuffed Hamas’s demand that the IDF withdraw from population centers along the southern Gaza border, the sources said.

According to the senior Israeli official briefing reporters on Thursday, there has been a “breakdown in contacts” with Hamas negotiators. “Hamas has cut off communication… There is no one to talk to on the other side. This is also [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff’s understanding,” said the official, who briefed Israeli reporters on condition of anonymity.

The official also noted that Jerusalem and Washington will work to increase humanitarian aid while continuing the fighting in Gaza.

Witkoff was in Israel on Thursday to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss the stalled negotiations along with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He was also slated to make a rare foray into Gaza on Friday with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, amid increasing concern within the US administration regarding reports of mass starvation in Gaza.

While the US and Israel are publicly in agreement on the need for Hamas to disarm, Netanyahu has talked about fighting Hamas until the very last fighter, critics argue that the premier is unnecessarily prolonging the war when Hamas has long been destroyed as a military and governing body and that ensuring that it can’t revive requires installing a viable alternative to its rule — something the prime minister has long refused to do.

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Separately Thursday, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group published footage of hostage Rom Braslavski, whom they are holding captive in the Gaza Strip. The terror group claimed the video was recorded days before it lost contact with captors holding the hostage, and alleged that the hostage’s fate was unknown.

Though the video itself did not air at the request of Braslavki’s family, his loved ones allowed a still to be published from the footage. The picture shows the 21-year-old looking pale and emaciated, lying on the ground in an unknown location in Gaza.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which has long called for a full hostage deal, expressed its support for the reported shift in Israeli negotiating policy, urging the Trump administration to work to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas.

“There is no moral or operational justification for partial, ‘selective’ deals. For months, this failed approach has endangered the hostages and delayed the only solution that can end this nightmare: one comprehensive agreement to bring every hostage home,” the Forum said in a statement.

The Forum called on Trump and Witkoff to “secure a comprehensive deal that ends the fighting and brings all 50 hostages home for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial.”

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up his second White House meeting with US President Donald Trump in as many days without any public announcement of a breakthrough in the ongoing Gaza ceasefire and hostage release talks, which was the primary topic of the sit-down.

The possibility of such a declaration appeared to rise when the meeting was publicly added to Netanyahu’s schedule just hours in advance, with Trump saying they would discuss the Gaza Strip, while US special envoy Mideast Steve Witkoff expressed hope a deal could be reached this week.

But as Netanyahu and Trump met for over an hour in the Oval Office along with US Vice President JD Vance, two sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that Witkoff decided to push back his flight to Doha, where he had been slated to join ongoing proximity talks between Israel and Hamas.

Witkoff initially was slated to fly to Qatar on Tuesday, the sources said, adding that a new departure date had yet to be scheduled.

The US envoy informed mediators that he still plans to travel to Doha in order to help bring the deal across the finish line, with his decision to push back the trip indicating that a significant amount of progress still needed to be made.

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The Saudi Asharq News outlet cited unnamed “informed sources” who reported that the fifth round of proximity talks in Qatar ended Tuesday night without significant progress.

A Palestinian official told the news site that talks were “at a standstill,” charging that the Israeli negotiations team is “limiting itself to listening rather than negotiating” and consulting on “every issue” with Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, the lead Israeli negotiator who is accompanying the premier in Washington.

The Palestinian official claimed the Israeli team lacks the authority to make actual decisions, “a continuation of the stalling policy of Netanyahu to obstruct any potential agreement.”

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Shortly before Netanyahu met with Trump on Tuesday, a delegation of senior Qatari officials held talks with Witkoff for three hours at the White House to discuss the hostage negotiations, a source familiar with the matter said.

After the conclusion of his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu said the discussions “focused on efforts to free our hostages.”

“We are not letting up for a moment, and this is possible because of the military pressure exerted by our heroic soldiers,” he said in a video shot in the Blair House. “Unfortunately, this effort is exacting a painful price from us, in the loss of our best sons.”

Netanyahu stressed that Israel is determined to achieve all of its goals in Gaza –“the release of all our hostages, both living and dead; the elimination of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

He said he also discussed with Trump and Vance “the implications and possibilities” of the operation Israel and the US carried out against Iran.

“Opportunities are opening up here for expanding the circle of peace, expanding the Abraham Accords,” he said. “We are working on this with full vigor.”

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Sticking point(s)

Four sources familiar with the negotiations told The Times of Israel that the US is more optimistic than Egyptian and Qatari mediators about the chances that a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal can be reached this week.

Witkoff told reporters earlier Tuesday that he is hopeful a deal can be reached this week, and that three of the four sticking points were resolved during the past three days of proximity talks in Doha.

A source familiar with the matter said the three issues Witkoff suggested have been solved were Hamas’s demand for guarantees from the mediators that the ceasefire will remain in place even if talks on the terms of a permanent ceasefire have not wrapped up by the end of the 60-day truce under discussion; Hamas’s demand for aid to be surged into Gaza through UN-backed mechanisms; and terms of the hostage-prisoner swap.

The source noted that while progress was made on the first two issues, the identities of Israelis and Palestinians to be released in the deal have not yet been discussed by the negotiators in Doha, with Hamas insisting that other matters be resolved first.

However, the number and identities of those being released are not considered as thorny an issue as the others, the source said, speculating that this was why Witkoff grouped the hostage-prisoner swap component of the deal with the issues that have already been resolved.

Regarding the issue of aid, negotiators in Doha offered initial backing for clauses in the agreement that would prevent the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation from operating in areas from which the IDF has withdrawn, a source familiar with the negotiations told The Times of Israel.

Only the UN and international organizations that are not connected to either Israel or Hamas will be responsible for distributing aid in areas where the IDF is no longer located, the source said.

Katz’s call for ‘humanitarian city’ said to mar hostage talks

The remaining obstacle is the partial withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza during the period of the 60-day truce, a US official and the source familiar with the talks said. Israel is insisting that it remain in the Morag Corridor in southern Gaza, near where it says it plans to create a “humanitarian city” in which the Strip’s entire population will be herded and prevented from leaving once vetted.

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Defense Minister Israel Katz briefed reporters on the idea earlier this week, sparking international uproar with talk of concentrating a population of 2 million people in such a small area, while barring them from leaving. Katz framed the plan as a mechanism for protecting the population, with humanitarian aid to be distributed in the area. However, international confidence in Israeli humanitarian initiatives is low after Gazans started coming under deadly IDF fire on a near-daily basis while trying to reach aid distribution hubs established by Israel and operated by the nascent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation since May.

Katz’s briefing marred the hostage talks in Doha, Palestinian sources told the Kan public broadcaster, saying that his remarks led Hamas to be less flexible regarding the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Due to disagreements over the parameters of the IDFs’ withdrawal from Gaza during the 60-day truce being negotiated in Doha, Israel was slated to submit a new set of maps on Wednesday showing its proposed redeployment of troops after the previous version was rejected by Hamas, a source familiar with the negotiations told The Times of Israel.

A compromise on the issue will take more time to secure, the source said, declining to elaborate further.

Verbal assurances

Two Arab diplomats briefed on the talks told The Times of Israel that Egypt and Qatar were far less optimistic about the chances of reaching a ceasefire this week, arguing that the gaps are wider than Witkoff indicated.

While the US offered Hamas a verbal assurance on Tuesday through mediators that Trump will personally make sure the temporary truce remains in place even if an agreement is not reached on a permanent ceasefire by the end of the 60-day truce, one of the Arab diplomats said that will likely not suffice.

Hamas wants the text of the ceasefire to state that the truce will remain in place so long as negotiations on a permanent ceasefire continue, dropping the condition included in an earlier version that the talks be held “in good faith,” the Arab diplomat and the source familiar said. Hamas feels Israel would use that clause to abandon the ceasefire, as it did in March.

Verbal assurances may also carry less weight for Hamas. A Palestinian official told The Times of Israel the terror group received such assurances before releasing Edan Alexander in May, with mediators insisting then that freeing the American-Israeli hostage would lead the US to pressure Israel to end the war, though that has yet to take place.

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Israel’s view on the current state of the talks, meanwhile, appears closer to that of the more hesitant Arab mediators than Witkoff.

A senior Israeli official told reporters on Monday that Hamas’s July 4 response to the latest ceasefire proposal moved the sides backward and that more than a few days might be needed to reach an agreement.

Netanyahu’s plan to end the war

In remarks to reporters earlier Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where he met with US House Speaker Mike Johnson, Netanyahu spoke defiantly about the need to continue fighting in Gaza until Hamas no longer exists.

“It requires some moves that are very painful [to Israel] and some that are very painful to Hamas,” he continued.

He said Israel is seeking a hostage-ceasefire on its own terms, and had accepted the latest proposal put forward by the mediators. “We are also prepared to end the war — on the conditions that Hamas can no longer act, that it no longer has governance or military capacities and that Gaza cannot be a threat to Israel.”

“There’s a very clear plan for how to do this,” he said, without elaborating beyond insisting that “we see eye to eye on this with the United States.”

He expressed hope for a deal on Israel’s terms “as soon as possible,” noting that it would mean 10 living hostages would come home. (The outline of the deal, as it currently stands, would see about half of the living hostages and about half of the dead hostages held by terror groups in Gaza returned to Israel over 60 days, in five separate releases. Eight living hostages would be freed on the first day and two released on the 50th day, according to an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries. Five slain hostages would be returned on the seventh day, five more on the 30th day and eight more on the 60th day. That would leave 22 hostages still held in Gaza, 10 of them believed by Israeli authorities to be alive.)

Netanyahu made the comments hours after five IDF soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Gaza, intensifying pushback against continued military operations in the Strip. Critics have argued that Hamas is sufficiently weakened for Israel to end the war, whereas continuing operations until the last Hamas fighter is killed will have the IDF bogged down in Gaza indefinitely.

Asked if Israel intends to control Gaza, he responded, “We intend for Hamas not to control there. We’ll do what’s needed for that to happen.” A day earlier, a senior Israeli official briefing reporters in Washington said Jerusalem does not oppose occupying Gaza for an interim period before handing over control of civil affairs to a different party that is not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu made a point of touting what he described as an unprecedented level of coordination between Israel and the US.

While neither side issued a detailed readout on Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting, the White House tweeted a photo of Netanyahu holding a red hat with the slogan, “Trump was right about everything.”

At his cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said he and Netanyahu would be talking “almost exclusively Gaza.”

“We’ve got to get that solved. Gaza is a tragedy. And [Netanyahu] wants to get it solved, and I want to get it solved, and I think the other side wants to get it solved,” he added before asking Witkoff to weigh in.

“We’re meeting at the president’s direction, with all the hostage families to let them know, and we think this will lead to a lasting peace in Gaza,” Witkoff said.

During their meeting on Monday over dinner, Netanyahu and Trump lavished praise on each other, as they hailed the results of the US and Israeli strikes against Iran last month. The prime minister presented Trump with a copy of the letter that he sent nominating the US president for a Nobel Peace Prize, explaining that the US strikes against Iran have opened the door for peace in the region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expresses optimism that a hostage release deal with Hamas can be sealed in the near future.

“I hope we can complete it in a few days,” he tells Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren in an interview before flying back to Israel.

“We’ll probably have a 60-day ceasefire. Get the first batch out and then use the 60 days to try to negotiate an end to this,” he says on the last day of a four-day visit, during which he met US President Donald Trump twice. “And this could end tomorrow — today, if Hamas lays down its arms.”

“We think we can bring it to completion,” continues Netanyahu. “So I wouldn’t tell you that we have a war goal that is unachievable. We’re going to defeat these monsters and get our hostages back.”

Netanyahu gets the number of hostages taken on October 7 wrong, saying it was 255 instead of 251. Four hostages, two dead and two alive, were already held by Hamas at the time of the 2023 attack.

The premier says Hamas is using violence to prevent civilians from escaping combat zones in Gaza.

“It is a fighting force and a governing force in Gaza that oppresses its people, targets our people, our civilians, and uses their civilians as human shields,” says Netanyahu. “And then they complain that the civilian losses are because of us. No, we say to the civilians, ‘Leave. Leave the war zone.’ … And Hamas says, ‘You don’t go. You try to leave the war zone, we’ll shoot you.’”

“And they shoot them because they want the pictures of dead civilians that they are causing put on Israel’s head. And that’s what you get in TikTok and the social media: ‘Israel is deliberately killing civilians.’ No, we’re not. Hamas is deliberately killing its own people, preventing them from escaping the war zone. So they’re monsters.”

Netanyahu says that he sees signs that Hamas is cracking: “There are Palestinians fighting Hamas because we weaken them to this point. We see something that never happened before. Palestinians in Gaza are fighting Hamas. Palestinians in Gaza are defying Hamas. Palestinians in Gaza are saying, ‘We don’t want them We don’t want to be tyrannized and subjugated by these monsters.”

He says that working with Trump is “extraordinary.”

“Look at what our cooperation produces,” he says. “Look at what happens when there’s no daylight between an American president and an Israeli prime minister.”

Netanyahu says that he and Trump are “achieving a common doctrine. It’s called peace through strength. First comes strength, then comes the peace.”

“There are several countries waiting in the wings” to make peace, he also says.

He stresses that Iran also took hostages as one of the first acts of the Islamic Republic. “This is part of the Iranian doctrine. This is part of the Iranian evil axis.”