Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, the United States says it's leaving Gaza ceasefire negotiations blaming Hamas while Palestinians face mass starvation.

This is famine. They bring us aid on these trucks and all these young people go to get some aid.

My kids go with them too. If you're going for a bag of flour, you're walking to your potential death.

In a rare move, the president visits the Federal Reserve, ratcheting up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell over interest rates.

And Columbia University agrees to pay the Trump administration and crack down on student

protests in exchange for federal funding being restored.

Welcome to the News Hour.

President Trump's Middle East envoy today announced that he was bringing his team home from Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

Steve Wickoff blamed Hamas and warned the U.S. and Israel would now pursue, quote, other means to release Israelis still held hostage more than 21 months after the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Nick Schiffen's been following all this and joins us now.

So Nick, tell us what do we know about what led to this decision to walk away from those talks?

Earlier today, Israel announced that it would withdraw its negotiators from

Doha to quote for additional consultations in Israel. And this afternoon, Whitkoff made the

announcement that you just said, saying he too was bringing his team home for additional consultations.

And he used this word. He said Hamas's latest response, quote, shows a lack of desire to reach a

ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith. But Amna,

sources I talk to tonight say that it's not clear that this is the end of negotiations. A U.S.

official tells me that Hamas's latest response demanded that Israel

released 200 high-profile Palestinian prisoners rather than 125, as Israel had offered, and also

adjusted slightly the map, exactly where troops, Israeli troops would go when that ceasefire began.

And that this official says that the mediators, including Qatar and Egypt, did not see that

as major changes and actually thought that the momentum was positive toward a deal.

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