It was supposed to be this way for a long time, it was said again and again that a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages were imminent. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks. A torment not only for the approximately 240 hostages in the hands of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups. A torment also for the relatives of those abducted.
Now at least women and children should be free. Israel’s government has agreed to a ceasefire lasting several days in return for the release of 50 Israeli hostages. Hamas confirmed the deal and also announced the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners.
And everyone asked Qatar to mediate
“We are closer to an agreement than ever before,” announced Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari hours earlier. The Gulf country has been considered the most promising mediator since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th and the Israeli counterattack. The emirate under the leadership of Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has good connections with all parties to the conflict. It houses the political leadership of the terrorist group Hamas and maintains stable contacts with Iran. At the same time, US troops are stationed at Al Udeid Air Base, the base of the Qatari Air Force. Qatar also maintains good relations with Israel, which has a trade office in Doha.
The emir has been in power for ten years, and sometimes one has the feeling that Qatar is too small for his big ambitions. Tamim managed to bring the World Cup to his country, which is only half the size of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and has only three million inhabitants. With the war in Ukraine, the emirate’s importance as a gas supplier grew; it has the third largest reserves in the world.
But it is only through the war in Gaza that the Emir’s ambitions to play an important role on the global level seem to have been realized. In recent weeks, top politicians from all over the world have repeatedly traveled to Doha, from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Annalena Baerbock to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The last person to come on Monday was the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric.
And everyone asked Qatar to mediate. An agreement already seemed within reach at the end of October. “There have been some advances and breakthroughs in the negotiations, especially when we compare where we started and where we are now,” the State Department spokesman said at the time. After that nothing happened for a long time. Every military escalation in Gaza made agreement more difficult.
Turkey and Egypt also vied for the role of mediator
In Israel itself, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are said to have long resisted a ceasefire. On the one hand, to give Hamas no opportunity to regroup; on the other hand, because a resumption of hostilities would be accompanied by an international outcry. Recently, the families of the hostages had increasingly called on the government to do everything possible to free their relatives.
Even within Hamas, there is said to have not always been agreement between the political leadership in Doha and the military leadership in Gaza. The frequent failure of mobile networks has not made communication easier. On November 13th, the Qatari representation in Gaza was hit by a rocket.
The upcoming negotiated solution will be a great success for Qatar even if not all of the hostages are released. Turkey and Egypt also vied for the role of mediator. For the Emir, the ceasefire and the release are also important because criticism has recently grown that Qatar harbors Hamas leaders like Ismail Hanija and has long financed the terrorist organization. In mid-October, US Secretary of State Blinken said during a visit to Doha that the Hamas presence in Qatar could not continue. EU representatives also criticized the fact that the emirate had not used all of its options to influence the terrorist group.
Qatar always countered that the money went to Hamas with the consent of Israel, which wanted to weaken the rival Palestinian Authority. And Hamas’ settlement in the Gulf in 2012 also happened with the consent of the USA. The political leadership of Hamas was based in Syria for a long time and had to look for a new headquarters when it opposed the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the Arab Spring. The USA favored the move to Qatar because it had better relations with the emirate than with Lebanon, which would also have been an option for Hamas.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani explained the presence of the Hamas political leadership in the emirate a few weeks ago as follows: The purpose is “to communicate and bring peace and calm to the region, and not to start a war.”