Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that Doha had suspended its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, citing the lack of progress in Gaza hostage and ceasefire negotiations.
“The State of 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,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement came in response to reports that Qatar had ended its role as mediator altogether and agreed with a US request to expel Hamas officials who are based in Doha. The Qatari Foreign Ministry said the reports were not accurate.
The ministry said that its spokesman, Majed Al-Ansari, stated, “The main goal of the office in Qatar is to be a channel of communication between the concerned parties, and this channel has contributed to achieving a ceasefire in previous stages.”
A senior Hamas official told Al Jazeera that they were aware of Qatar suspending its mediation role but said, “No one told us to leave.”
The Hamas office in Doha opened in 2012 at the request of the US, which wanted a line of communication with the Palestinian group. Hamas was based in Damascus before that but was expelled for siding against the government in the war in Syria.
Qatar has come under pressure from members of the US Congress over Hamas’s presence. But Doha’s mediation led to a successful deal in November 2023 that freed over 100 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of over 200 Palestinian prisoners.
The suspension of Qatar’s mediation means Israel will not be under any pressure to reach a hostage deal as it is carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza. US officials have blamed Hamas for the lack of another ceasefire deal, but Israeli media reports and comments from Israeli officials have made it clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing everything he could to sabotage an agreement.
