Israel-Gaza war: Qatar reevaluates role in ceasefire negotiations

Qatar is reevaluating its role as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas, the country's prime minister said.

Qatar has played a key role, along with Egypt and the United States, in securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the release of Israeli hostages.

However, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Doha was being exploited, abused and undermined by those seeking to score political points.

He also said that the current peace negotiations are at a “delicate stage”.

Attempts to secure a ceasefire have been tenuous and largely unsuccessful, but Qatar's ties to all powers, including close ties with Hamas, are seen as crucial to defusing the situation.

Mediators have proposed a six-week cease-fire in which Hamas would release 40 women, children, elderly and sick hostages, but Hamas publicly rejected the proposal over the weekend.

Qatar is now openly doubting the success of these negotiations and says it is reevaluating its role as a mediator.

Qatar's Sheikh Mohammed said those efforts were being undermined by politicians looking to score points.

“Unfortunately, we have seen that there has been an abuse of this mediation, an abuse of mediation in favor of narrow political interests,” he told a news conference in Doha.

“This means that the State of Qatar is seeking a comprehensive assessment of this role. We are currently at the stage of evaluating the mediation and how the parties will engage in this mediation. ”

Although he did not identify individuals, critics within the U.S. Congress say they have not put enough pressure on Qatar to make concessions to Hamas. The United States has accused the Palestinian militant group of being an “obstruction to the ceasefire” after the group publicly rejected the latest ceasefire proposal over the weekend.

As tensions between Israel and Iran rise, Qatari prime minister warns of escalation of conflict, with fresh concerns emerging that the deadly war in Gaza could escalate into a wider regional conflict. He called on the broader international community to accept its responsibility and end the war.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that 14 Israeli soldiers were injured, six seriously, by anti-tank missiles and drones fired from Lebanese territory into a village in northern Israel.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it opened fire on military targets in the Arab al-Aramsheh region in retaliation for recent Israeli airstrikes that killed Hezbollah commanders and other fighters.

Hezbollah, like Hamas, is banned as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, Britain and other countries, but it has engaged in near-daily firefights with Israeli forces along the border since the start of the war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted on October 7 when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 hostages. He was taken back to Gaza.

More than 33,800 people, the majority of them women and children, were killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel's military operation to crush Hamas and free hostages, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the region.

A week-long ceasefire in November resulted in the release of 105 hostages, most of them women and children, in exchange for about 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Israeli authorities have announced that more than 30 of the 133 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip (including four taken prisoner before the war) have died.

Hamas issued a statement on Saturday saying it was willing to agree to a “serious and genuine” hostage exchange agreement with Israel, but rejected what was currently being considered.

It also reaffirmed its commitment to calling for a permanent ceasefire leading to the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians.

Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, whose chief heads Israel's negotiating team, said on Sunday that Hamas' stance was that Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar “does not want a humanitarian agreement or the return of the hostages and continues to exploit tensions.” “It shows that we are doing well,” he said. “He is working with Iran and trying to unite the sectors to achieve regional escalation.”

“The bottom line is that Hamas needs to live up to the deal, and it needs to explain to the world and the Palestinian people why it won't live up to the deal,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday.

A senior Israeli official told U.S. media last week that Hamas had told mediators that it did not have any of the 40 hostages alive, including children, women, including soldiers, and men over 50, one of the criteria set out in the latest cease-fire proposal. Told. and people with serious medical conditions.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official said the ceasefire needed to proceed to allow “sufficient time and security” to find all the hostages.

Sheikh Mohammed also called on the international community to “accept responsibility and stop this war”, saying civilians in Gaza faced “siege and starvation” and aid was being used as a “tool of political blackmail”. he warned.

A United Nations-backed report last month said starvation was imminent in northern Gaza, with 1.1 million people, half the population, facing catastrophic hunger. The United Nations condemns Israel's restrictions on aid deliveries, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown in order.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Wednesday that he “rejects the claims of international organizations regarding famine in the Gaza Strip” and insisted that Israel is “going further than ever in the humanitarian field.”

The Israeli military also announced on Wednesday that eight United Nations World Food Program trucks transported flour through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, marking the first time food aid has entered the Gaza Strip from Israel's Ashdod container port. announced.

A new border with northern Gaza was established last week as Israel sought to meet U.S. President Joe Biden's demands after an Israeli airstrike on Gaza killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1. was also established.

But Gaza's largest humanitarian agency, the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA), said in a report on Tuesday that “there has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies flowing into Gaza, and access to the north has not improved.” Stated. .

According to statistics released by UNRWA, from April 5, the day after Biden met with Netanyahu, to April 15, the latest available date, the number of passengers passing through Kerem Shalom and the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border On average, 185 trucks entered Gaza each day. According to the data, the daily average for the seven-day period from March 29 to April 4 was 168.

A senior United Nations humanitarian official also warned on Tuesday that while there had been some improvement in coordinating aid deliveries with Israel, it was still struggling to prevent famine.

“It's much more involved than just bringing in flour and baking a few loaves of bread. It's really complicated,” Andrea de Domenico said. “Water, sanitation and health are fundamental to curbing hunger.”

Kogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry agency that coordinates aid shipments to Gaza, said 700 truckloads of supplies were waiting to be collected on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom. “We have expanded our capacity. All the UN has done is fabricated excuses,” he added.

On Wednesday, in another deployment on the ground in Gaza, the Israeli military announced that its troops and aircraft had “eliminated a large number of terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure” in the heart of the territory.

Palestinian media reported heavy shelling and fighting in and around Nuseyrat refugee camp, and that 11 members of the al-Nuri family were killed in an attack on their home on Tuesday.

The Israeli military also announced a raid in the northern town of Beit Hanun “to arrest terrorists hiding in a school.” It added that a number of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were captured and others who resisted were also killed.

The United Nations said a house in Beit Hanun was hit on Tuesday, causing extensive damage and killing four people.

“We are shocked by the progress of the occupation,” a man from neighboring Jabalia told BBC Arabic's Gaza Lifeline radio service. [Israeli] The military surrounded the entire area and arrested young men, women, and children. The military evacuated us from the area, killed people in Beit Hanoun, entered the school in the evacuation center and arrested those who were inside. ”

“This is how our lives became unbearable… No matter where we walk, we are constantly bombarded with shells from tanks.”