DOHA: Qatar has withdrawn as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal and warned Hamas that its Doha office “no longer serves its purpose”, a diplomatic source told AFP on Saturday.
“The Qataris informed both the Israelis and Hamas that as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith, they cannot continue to mediate,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. “As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose.”
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, has been engaged in months of fruitless negotiations for a truce with hostage and prisoner releases.
The informed source said Qatar had already “notified both sides, Israel and Hamas as well as the US administration” of its decision, AFP reported.
“The Qataris conveyed to the US administration that they would be ready to re-engage in mediation when both sides… demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table”, the source said as cited by AFP.
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told AFP on Saturday that the Palestinian group had received no indication from Qatar that it should leave the country, where its political office has been based for years.
“We have nothing to confirm or deny regarding what was published by an unidentified diplomatic source and we have not received any request to leave Qatar,” the official told AFP from Doha.
On Friday, Reuters cited a senior US administration official that the US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since Hamas rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal.
The latest round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the senior official said as quoted by Reuters.
The official said that Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the group’s political office, and it told Doha that now was the time.
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President Joe Biden’s administration has been preparing to make a final push to end Israeli assaults in Gaza and Lebanon. Republican Donald Trump’s election this week as the next US president has significantly diminished Biden’s leverage during his last weeks in office.
In previous rounds of ceasefire talks, disagreements over new demands that Israel introduced about the future military presence in Gaza obstructed a deal, even after Hamas accepted a version of a ceasefire proposal that Biden unveiled in May.
Hamas at the time viewed Israel as having moved the goal post for a deal “last-minute,” and worried any concessions it made would be met by more demands, a source close to the talks told Reuters in August.
In November 2023, this negotiation track in Doha led to a seven-day truce in Gaza, facilitating the release of dozens of hostages held there in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Humanitarian aid also flowed into the shattered coastal strip but hostilities swiftly resumed and have continued ever since.- AFP
