Qatar has put its Gaza war mediation on hold until Israel and Hamas show “willingness and seriousness” to end the conflict, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday.
The Gulf state told Israel and Hamas last month that it would suspend mediation after nearly a year of failed attempts to broker a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, Majed Al Ansari said.
“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,” he said in a statement.
“Qatar will resume those efforts with its partners when the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war,” Ansari added.
The spokesman also rejected reports that Hamas has been kicked out of Qatar, which has hosted the Palestinian militant group’s political office for more than a decade.
“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,” he said.
Earlier, a diplomatic source told AFP that Qatar was pulling back from the Gaza talks, adding that the Hamas office “no longer serves its purpose”.
“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,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
“As a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose.”
Qatar, along with the United Sates and Egypt, has been engaged in months of fruitless negotiations for a truce with a hostage and prisoner releases.
The Gulf state, also home to a major US military base, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012 with Washington’s blessing.
During the talks after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel last year, both Qatari and US officials indicated that the militant group would remain in Doha as long as its presence offered a viable channel of communication.
– ‘Political leverage’ –
Qatar said in April that it was reassessing its role as a mediator in the conflict as it was facing criticism, notably from Israeli and US politicians.
At that time, the Qataris gave a similar message over the status of the Hamas office, prompting Hamas officials to leave for Turkey, the diplomatic source said.
But they returned two weeks later at the request of the United States and Israel, as negotiations were “ineffective” while they were in Turkey, the source said.
Apart from a one-week pause in fighting late last year, during which scores of Hamas-held hostages were released, successive negotiations have failed to halt the war.
To break the deadlock near the end of US President Joe Biden’s term, and in the run-up to this week’s US elections, Washington and Doha last month announced fresh in-person talks to explore new options.
But the latest initiative produced no breakthrough.
The diplomatic source said Qatar had “concluded that there is insufficient willingness from either side, with the mediation efforts becoming more about politics and elections rather than a serious attempt to secure peace”.
Qatar “advised the US administration and both parties that it would not accept being subjected to political exploitation aimed at gaining political leverage at Qatar’s expense while misleading public perception”, the source added.
