Discussions with no real outcome. Qatar has withdrawn its mediation between Israel and Palestinian Hamas after months of unsuccessful efforts to end the war in the Gaza Strip, a diplomatic source said on Saturday.
He also affirmed that the Hamas political office in Doha had “no longer any reason to exist,” added the same source, without explicitly saying whether the office would be closed.
“The Qataris have informed the Israelis and Hamas that as long as both sides refuse to negotiate a deal in good faith, they cannot continue to play the role of mediator,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “As a result, the Hamas political office (in Doha) no longer has its raison d'être. »
“We have not received any request to leave Qatar,” said a Hamas official from Doha, who requested anonymity, contacted by telephone by AFP.
Several unsuccessful negotiations
With the United States and Egypt, Qatar had mediated between the two belligerents since a single truce in the conflict in November 2023 which lasted a week and allowed the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for prisoners Palestinians detained by Israel. Since then, numerous negotiating sessions have taken place without any results.
Hamas and Israel accuse each other of blocking any agreement, each camp refusing the other's conditions for a ceasefire in the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by an attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel.
According to the diplomatic source, Qatar has already “notified both parties, Israel and Hamas as well as the American administration” of its decision. “The Qataris have informed the American administration that they would be ready to engage again in mediation when both parties (…) demonstrate a sincere desire to return to the negotiating table. »
A “lack of sufficient will”
To break the deadlock as the end of President Joe Biden's term approaches and the American presidential election which took place on November 5, Washington and Doha announced new negotiations at the end of October with a view to an agreement. But, there too, no result.
Qatar then concluded “an absence of sufficient will on both sides” to move forward in the discussions and judged that “the mediation efforts had become more a question of politics and elections than a serious attempt to achieve peace,” according to the diplomatic source.
In this context of blockage, Qatar had “informed the American administration and the two parties that it would not accept being subjected to political exploitation (…)”, she continued.
Qatar, an ally of the United States, has housed the political office of Hamas for more than ten years and it is also in Qatar that the former leader of the Palestinian movement Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed on July 31 in an attack in Tehran, resided. attributed to Israel. The Hamas office in Qatar was “opened in 2012 in coordination with the American government, following its request to have a channel of communication” with the movement, a Qatari official explained at the start of the war.
