IThey have thrown in the towel: Qatar announced on Saturday that it was abandoning its role as mediator in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. “It no longer has any reason to exist in the absence of a desire on the part of the protagonists to enter into an agreement in good faith to end the war in Gaza,” said the authorities of the emirate, who share this role with the United States and Egypt. Qatar also indicated that it no longer saw any reason for the existence in its capital Doha of a Hamas office, opened in 2012.
Will this office be closed for good? Too early to tell. If this were the case, it would mark the end of a channel of negotiation between the Palestinian group and the rest of the world. Qatar is in any case drawing lessons from the failure of the shuttles between Israel and Hamas since November 2023, the date of the only truce that allowed a lull and the release of Israeli hostages against Palestinian prisoners. Meanwhile, the political leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, who lived in Doha, was liquidated by Israel on July 31 in Tehran.
Bombs and starvation in Gaza
On the ground, Israel's war and the ordeal of civilians continue. Strikes on Gaza and Lebanon have left 50 people dead since Thursday. In the north of the Palestinian enclave, 14 people including children died in two attacks against a school and a tent village. Israel defends itself from attacking civilians by recalling, as always, that Hamas uses human shields, an increasingly inaudible excuse when in the month of October alone, 64 schools were targeted in the ruins. from Gaza.
Faced with the return of the bad season, Gazan civilians are once again threatened with famine, especially in the north of the enclave, as noted by the United Nations food agency (FAO). Their ordeal is all the more desperate as they are deprived of international attention: not only is the press persona non grata of Gaza, but Trump's re-election has extinguished the voice and influence of the Biden team, while Israel feels comforted by the billionaire's return to the White House.
Reinforced “hawks”
“The greatest victory in history,” Benjamin Netanyahu exclaimed to Trump. “A historic victory and an opportunity to defeat the axis of evil led by Iran,” added its new Defense Minister Israel Katz. However, the arrival at the head of the armies of the man we call in Jerusalem “the bulldozer” is anything but an indication of an end to the crisis. He is in fact close to the Prime Minister, with whom he shares the die-hard line of crushing Hamas and Hezbollah.
His predecessor Yoav Gallant judged that Israel had achieved its war goals and must negotiate the release of the last hostages. His dismissal, combined with the return of Trump, strengthens the “hawks” camp. Katz, who until now directed the diplomacy of the Jewish state (he was replaced by Gideon Saar, a former rival of Netanyahu who joined the Prime Minister), is in fact the one who led the offensive against the United Nations agencies. united, going so far as to declare its secretary general Antonio Guterres “persona non grata in Israel”.
“Pogrom” in Amsterdam
Israel's continuation of its war of reprisals, despite the fatigue of the army and civilians, is taking place in an increasingly tense climate. This is evidenced by the serious incidents in Amsterdam on the sidelines of the football match between the Ajax team and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, with dozens of injured Israeli supporters, 62 arrests and a worldwide controversy. Although the Maccabi ultras had their part in this anti-Semitic eruption, the Israeli government spoke of a “pogrom” and flew to the aid of its nationals with an airlift back to the country.
The two months which separate the inauguration of Trump-2 on January 20 are likely to be long in the Middle East. The only ones capable of really influencing a solution to the conflict, will the United States finally convince their Israeli ally to negotiate? During the US campaign, Trump instead did the opposite by urging Netanyahu “to end the problem” in Gaza before he returned to the Oval Office, while asking Israelis to “stop killing people”.
During his first term, the billionaire acted, via the “Abraham Accords”, to stabilize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. But he did so without preventing Israel from continuing its colonization in the West Bank, and by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state by transferring the American embassy there.
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