Qatar has suspended its role as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in talks, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.
The Gulf emirate, which has hosted Hamas’ political leadership since 2012 with the US’ blessing, has been involved in months of protracted diplomacy aimed at ending the war triggered by the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year.
However, the talks, also mediated by Cairo and Washington, have repeatedly hit problems since a one-week truce in November last year — the only one so far. Each side has blamed the other for the impasse.
Photo: Reuters
“Qatar notified the parties 10 days ago, during the last attempts to reach an agreement, that it would stall its efforts to mediate between Hamas and Israel if an agreement was not reached in that round,” Doha’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, said in a statement. “Qatar would resume those efforts ... when the parties show their willingness and seriousness,” he added.
“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,” a diplomatic source said earlier.
With Gaza truce talks deadlocked, the Hamas political office in Doha “no longer serves its purpose,” the diplomatic source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Qatari and US officials have indicated that Hamas would remain in Doha as long as its presence offered a viable channel of communication.
“We have not received any request to leave Qatar,” a senior Hamas official in Doha said.
Despite the truce last year, when scores of Hamas-held hostages were released, subsequent rounds of talks have failed to end the war.
The diplomatic source said that Qatar had “concluded that there is insufficient willingness from either side” to bridge the gaps in negotiations.
One crucial hurdle has been Hamas’ insistence that Israel withdraw completely from Gaza, something Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected.
On the ground in the besieged Gaza Strip, the fighting showed no signs of abating on Saturday, the war’s 400th day.
The territory’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including nine at a tent camp in the southern area of Khan Yunis.
A UN-backed assessment issued on Saturday said famine is looming in northern Gaza because of a “rapidly deteriorating situation” with increased hostilities and a near-complete halt in food aid.
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” the alert from the Famine Review Committee said.
The Israeli military said the report relied on “partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests.”
The Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,552 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the Oct. 7 attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
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