Qatar has reportedly withdrawn from its role as a key negotiator between Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza.
A US official earlier said that Qatar had agreed to expel Hamas leaders residing there over the militant group’s repeated refusal to accept a ceasefire agreement, something Hamas denied.
The state has acted as a mediator between Israel and Hamas since the escalation of the conflict on 7 October, in part because it is home to top officials from the militant group whilst also being a key US ally in the Middle East.
“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. As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose,” a diplomatic source told AFP.
After a series of failed negotiations to bring peace in the embattled Gaza Strip, the US told Qatar two weeks ago that it must expel Hamas’s leaders.
But a senior Hamas official said reports of Qatar agreeing to expel Hamas officials from Doha were “baseless” and a “pressure tactic,” adding that similar claims have been previously circulated without supporting evidence.
“What was reported in the Israeli media about Qatar agreeing to expel Hamas from Doha following a US request has no basis and is merely a pressure tactic. This has been repeated without any evidence,” the Hamas official told CNN on Saturday.
Why have Hamas leaders been expelled?
The US has repeatedly asked Qatar to use the threat of expulsion to bring Hamas to the negotiating table, CNN reports.
The official said that the final straw had come over the death of American-Israeli hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and Hamas’s rejection of another ceasefire deal.
“Hamas is a terrorist group that has killed Americans and continues to hold Americans hostage,” a senior administration official told CNN.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner.”
It is not clear when Hamas operatives will be leaving Qatar or where they might go.
Earlier in 2024, the US justice department charged several Hamas leaders over the 7 October attacks. At least one of the defendants – Khaled Meshaal – is believed to be living in Qatar.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow on the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House said that the expulsion attempt was “a significant move in many ways.”
“It’s significant for Qatar because they gained political capital and international reputation by hosting terrorist groups. They had a position that they would be the ones to talk to the bad guys. It’s also significant for Hamas because Qatar is one of the few places where Israel didn’t go after them. It’s likely they’ll be more unsafe anywhere else, so it’s a blow.
“However, if it does happen at all, I doubt it will be long term policy for Qatar.”
What does this mean for a ceasefire?
The Qatari withdrawal and reported Hamas expulsion dashes hopes of any immediate progress on a ceasefire.
However, the US may hope that the move will force Hamas to think again about negotiations and show its seriousness about obtaining a ceasefire.
Mr Al-Muslimi said he thought this would backfire and hinder efforts towards a ceasefire.
“I don’t think it’s part of a wider US strategy here, I think it shows the US doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s part of the wider confusion and illusion in its approach [to the conflict],” he said.
“Things don’t work by threat in the Middle East. It’s an unwritten rule that things like this usually backfire. If it is an effort to get them back to the negotiating table, it will not work.
“It won’t have a positive effect on the ceasefire negotiations, but it could have a negative one. It could just make it more of a zero sum game. Fundamentally, it’s never a good thing to have one less person to negotiate with.”
In August, a new round of ceasefire negotiations began in the Qatari capital of Doha, with Mossad chief David Barnea, CIA director Bill Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and senior Egyptian officials.
Hamas was not represented, having accused Israel of sabotaging previous talks, but the militant group’s team in Doha is in regular contact with mediators.
But the talks – which have been aimed at securing peace within Gaza and a return of the remaining hostages – eventually failed to reach a meaningful agreement.
Earlier in the year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani admitted that talks were going “backwards”, as Israel pressed on with offensives in the city of Rafah, where many Palestinians had been sheltering, despite warnings from allies.
What is the situation in Gaza?
More than 43,300 people have been killed in Gaza since the escalation of conflict with Israel on 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry who’s figures are deemed reliable by the UN.
Close to 70 per cent of the verified victims over a six month period have been women and children, the UN’s human rights office has said.
It confirmed the details of 8,119 people killed in Gaza between November 2023 and April 2024, with 80 per cent killed in residential-type buildings.
The report said it found “unprecedented” levels of international law violations and raised concerns about “war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes”.
The UN agency said that the high number of civilians killed in Gaza was largely due to Israel’s use of wide-area weapons in densely populated urban areas, but that some may have been killed by Palestinian rockets misfiring.
Israel has maintained that it targets Hamas operatives, attempts to reduce the harm to civilians with precision munitions, and acts in accordance with international law.
On 7 October, 1,200 people were killed in Israel when Hamas launched a wave of attacks at a music festival and residential communities.
A further 251 people were taken hostage, according to Israel, and more than 90 remain unaccounted for.
Israel launched a wave of airstrikes and ground operations following the attacks, killing tens of thousands and plunging Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.
Israel is now close to achieving the goal of depopulating northern Gaza, Israeli military sources said, despite warnings from human rights groups that this would constitute a “grave breach” of international law.
