DOHA: Qatar’s suspension of its crucial mediation between Israel and Hamas has crushed hopes for a long-stalled truce in the Gaza conflict and prisoner release deal.

The wealthy Gulf country hosts the largest US base in the Middle East and Hamas’s political office, and has played a pivotal role in indirect talks since the Oct 7 raid that sparked the conflict.

The negotiations offered the only hope for freeing Israeli prisoners held by Hamas and ending a conflict that has left 43,603 people dead in Gaza, according to a toll from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. But Qatar announced last week that it has put its mediation on hold until Israel and Hamas show “willingness and seriousness” to end the conflict.

Where do talks stand?

Since a one-week pause in fighting last year, when scores of prisoners were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, successive rounds of negotiations have made no headway. This month, Hamas rejected a proposal from Egypt and Qatar for a short-term truce, as it did not offer a lasting ceasefire. Israel has repeatedly vowed it will not stop fighting until it achieves its deadly objectives.

While Egypt borders Gaza and the United States is Israel’s main backer, Qatar’s role in the talks was unique in that was the only player able to claim neutral ground. It has mediated in numerous international crises, including in Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan.

Negotiations on Gaza need a broker and “I can’t see how that would be anyone else”, Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London. The talks are “now in a situation where there is no negotiation process anymore”, he added.

Hamas has been weakened by the killings of leaders Yahya Sinwar in October and Ismail Haniyeh in July, to a point where it is unclear “how you maintain a negotiation process with all the main interlocutors dead”, he said.

Anna Jacobs, a Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, said “Hamas feels they already agreed to a US ceasefire plan over the summer”. But that proposal never produced an agreement.

Jacobs said Hamas thinks Israel is “sabotaging negotiations by constantly adding on new conditions”, including keeping a military presence in Gaza.

Could Hamas leave Qatar?

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari on Saturday pushed back against reports suggesting that Hamas would be ejected from the country. The “main goal of the (Hamas) office in Qatar is to be a channel of communication”, Ansari said, adding that it had “contributed to achieving a ceasefire in previous stages”.

A senior Hamas official said that the group had received no indication from Qatar that it should leave. Earlier, a diplomatic source said that with Qatar pulling back in its mediation role, the Hamas office “no longer serves its purpose”.

Given the Hamas and Qatari denials, Jacobs said that “it’s unlikely that there will be a big, public closing of the Hamas office and kicking out the leadership.” Qatar gave Hamas a similar message in April, prompting several group members to leave for Turkiye — only to return two weeks later at the request of the United States and Israel, when negotiations proved unworkable.

Krieg said Hamas now appeared to be in “limbo” and that demands were mounting for an expulsion in “a fairly short window of maybe a few weeks”, with the most likely destination being Iran.

Turkiye has been touted as a new host but the Nato member is unlikely to want to upset the United States, Krieg added.

According to Jacobs, it is possible that until US President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan 20 inauguration, “Hamas officials will stay out of Doha until more serious negotiations resume”.

Will Qatar bow out for good?

Qatar had already signalled its unhappiness in April when it said it was re-evaluating its mediator role. But it has signalled its willingness to return to the table when conditions permit.

“This is primarily about... signalling to the world, we are mediating, we’re happy to continue mediating, but we’re also willing to put all the weight, all the leverage that we have over Hamas,” Krieg said.

Jacobs said Qatar’s relationship with Hamas had come under scrutiny from American policymakers, especially Republicans in Congress. “It makes sense that they are trying to protect themselves and preemptively remove any vulnerability that Trump and a likely Republican-controlled Congress could attack,” she said.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024