As Israel, US align on new hostage proposal, Qatar urges sticking to existing framework

DOHA, Qatar — A senior Qatari official said Sunday that the best way to extend the teetering ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of more hostages was through the existing framework that the sides signed onto in January, and appeared to dismiss the new proposal being pushed by Israel and the United States as less likely to succeed.

“Right now, there are a lot of ideas being thrown around to maintain the ceasefire,” said Majed al-Ansari, who serves as an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and as spokesperson for its foreign affairs ministry.

“We were hoping that the second-phase negotiations would start and that preparation for phase two would kick off. That hasn’t happened until now, and until that happens, there is no sustainability in the talks,” warned Ansari in his office in Doha in a rare interview with an Israeli media outlet.

The remark appeared to constitute tacit criticism of Washington’s approach from Doha, which to date has largely praised the Trump administration’s efforts in the hostage talks, particularly for getting the deal over the finish line even before the inauguration.

According to the terms of the phased agreement that went into effect on January 19, Israel and Hamas were supposed to have begun holding negotiations regarding the terms of the second phase on the 16th day of the deal, February 3.

Israel has largely held off on holding those negotiations, as phase two ultimately requires that in exchange for the remaining living hostages, Israel fully withdraw from Gaza and permanently end the war — something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not accept before Hamas has been fully dismantled.

The 42-day phase one expired Saturday, and mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt have held discussions with Israeli and Hamas officials since Day 16, but they haven’t dealt substantively with the terms of phase two, since Netanyahu appears uninterested in pursuing it.

The deal allows for the ceasefire to continue after phase one expires, as long as the sides are still negotiating the terms of phase two.

The sides could perhaps argue that those talks are, in fact, ongoing, even though they are using them to different ends: Hamas wants the implementation of phase two, and Israel wants a new framework that Netanyahu laid out on Saturday night.

“Right now, we are in limbo,” Ansari said.

The Israeli proposal — which Netanyahu characterized as having been crafted by the Trump administration’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff — would see the ceasefire extended through Ramadan until Passover, taking it to April 19. At the beginning of that period, Hamas would release roughly half of the remaining 59 hostages; it would then release the second half at the end of the holiday ceasefire, if the sides reach an agreement to permanently end the war.

This would likely require Hamas to surrender its military capabilities, which Arab mediators say is a nonstarter, as the terror group is using the hostages as leverage to survive and will not abandon armed resistance against Israel under such terms.

Nonetheless, Ansari said it is the mediators’ responsibility to provide Hamas with every proposal and give the terror group an opportunity to respond.

“We are coordinating with the US administration, and we’re getting all of their ideas across. To this end, our prime minister is in direct contact with Steve Witkoff,” Ansari noted.

Still, Qatar wants to stay the course of the phased framework, and fellow Arab mediator Egypt said as much on Sunday, too.

“On our side, we’re pushing to maintain the articles and language of the agreement. Negotiations regarding the terms of phase two are what we are aiming for,” Ansari said. He acknowledged, however, that “what we haven’t seen is anything developing.”

As expected, Hamas quickly rejected the Israeli-US proposal on Sunday, insisting that it was only willing to proceed in negotiations through the phase two framework that Jerusalem signed onto.

Hamas has accused Israel of violating the original deal by seeking to extend phase one and delaying entry into phase two talks. In its statement on Saturday night, Netanyahu’s office said that Hamas had repeatedly violated the agreement while Israel was in full compliance. Israeli officials have cited Hamas’s February 10 threat to suspend hostage releases, its “demeaning” hostage-release propaganda ceremonies, and its initial sending of the body of a Gazan woman instead of the remains of Shiri Bibas, who was brutally murdered, along with her young sons Ariel and Kfir, by their captors in the early weeks of the war.

Breaches reported

The deal also stipulated that the IDF begin withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor border stretch between Gaza and Egypt this past Saturday and complete the process in eight days, on Sunday.

Already last month, Netanyahu announced that Israel would not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, asserting that the IDF needed to remain deployed there in order to prevent smuggling that would allow Hamas to rearm.

On Sunday, Israel also announced that it was halting the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza now that phase one was complete, and because Hamas was refusing to accept the “Witkoff plan” or release additional hostages.

The January deal states that aid is supposed to continue entering Gaza, so long as talks on phase two continue. Technical teams have indeed met several times over the past month, including late last week in Cairo, but whether those are considered phase two negotiations may be up for interpretation.

Not for Doha, though. Ansari said Qatar views the use of humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip as a violation of international human rights.

Netanyahu has argued that Hamas has been stealing the aid coming into Gaza in order to regroup, which Israel wouldn’t allow.

“We’ve been dealing with all of these breaches, and some of them have not been addressed,” Ansari said, highlighting the temporary housing that Israel was supposed to allow into the Strip but has largely refrained from doing at the agreed-upon scale.

The senior Qatari official acknowledged that Israel has alleged Hamas breaches as well, without getting into detail.

While many aspects of phase one didn’t run smoothly, the releases of hostages and of Palestinian terrorists, other security prisoners and detainees were all completed. “So the only way to get the hostages home, the only way to get peace in Gaza is through negotiations for phase two,” Ansari said.

Not ruling out Hamas role

The yet-to-substantively-begin phase two talks are also supposed to include discussions regarding the postwar management of Gaza, with Israel and the US insisting that there can be no role for Hamas.

Arab diplomats speaking to The Times of Israel over the past month have said that they do think they will be able to coax Hamas to cede governing control of the Strip but that the idea of the terror group forgoing its weapons is unrealistic.

Still, an increasing number of senior Arab officials are calling on Hamas to step down, including the secretary general of the Arab League and a top adviser to the Emirati president.

Qatar has taken a slightly different approach, likely due to its support for Islamist movements, and is quietly advocating for Hamas to at least be consulted in the formation of the new technical committee to run Gaza, arguing that consensus support among Palestinians will be essential for the panel to succeed.

That effort has upset the Palestinian Authority, which has been pushing back on any attempt to grant Hamas a foothold — directly or indirectly — in the postwar management of Gaza.

“We’ve always said that the PA is the legitimate representative [body] of the Palestinian people. It’s the political leadership of the Palestinians. We are also one of the last stable supporters of the PA in the region,” Ansari noted.

“We hope that the PA can remedy the fractures within the Palestinian people and can lead the next phase to unite Gaza and the West Bank,” he added.

Still, when asked repeatedly whether Qatar would get behind US, Israeli and even PA calls for Hamas not to play a role in the so-called “day after,” Ansari refrained from doing so.

“It’s up to the Palestinian people on the ground… We have to give agency to the Palestinian people. You can’t decide on their behalf,” he said.

The leaders of Qatar and several other Arab states are slated to gather in Cairo on Tuesday to present their plan for the postwar management of Gaza, as regional leaders seek to conclusively block US President Donald Trump’s plan to permanently relocate Gaza’s populace and develop the Strip as a Middle East Riviera.

Ansari acknowledged that there are disagreements between the various Arab actors. However, he said, “We all agree that the rights of the Palestinian people should be respected, we all agree that there should be security guarantees for both sides, and we all agree that the future is through negotiation and peace, and not through war.”

‘Fake news aimed at harming Qatar’s reputation’

The interview in Doha took place hours after Israel’s Channel 12 revealed what it said were newly uncovered aspects of ties between Qatar and Hamas.

Critics of Doha have pointed to its close ties to Hamas and its years of sending funding to Gaza that indirectly allowed the terror group to prioritize building up its arsenal to attack Israel.

Qatar, in turn, has argued that Israel and the US both lobbied aggressively for Doha to make such payments in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Netanyahu, himself, defended those payments in an interview with Time magazine last year.

While Netanyahu and his Likud allies have become some of Qatar’s biggest critics, the attorney general last week ordered a criminal investigation opened into alleged ties between the premier’s office and Qatar after reports that three of his top aides have been involved in PR work on Doha’s behalf.

Qatar’s prime minister denied last month having any knowledge of his country hiring any of Netanyahu’s aides.

Saturday’s Channel 12 report alleged that Qatar has funded Hamas throughout the war via charity organizations in Turkey. Moreover, the network said, Doha paid for the installation of high-tech cameras throughout Gaza that Hamas’s military wing used to track and strike Israeli soldiers throughout the war.

“Regarding aid from Qatar to Gaza, we’ve been very clear and transparent about this from the beginning. All of the aid that went into Gaza was monitored by the Israeli government, and the process was actually not only welcomed but requested by the Israeli government,” Ansari said, dismissing the largely unsourced Channel 12 report.

Read more: Documents show Israel sought, valued Qatari aid for Gaza in years leading to Oct. 7

“Our engagement with Hamas was mainly through the reconstruction committee in Gaza — which was done in tandem with the Israelis — and more recently through the negotiation process, through the [Hamas] political office here in Doha,” he said. “Anything other than that is basically just fake news aimed at harming Qatar’s reputation as a mediator.”

To further push back on the criticism of Qatar, Ansari pointed to Doha’s regular engagement with hostage families, who he said have sought out and valued its assistance.

“If you want to talk about the deal and what’s happening on the ground, go talk to the hostage families, go talk to the families of the Palestinians on the ground,” he continued. “You’ll see the effect that this deal has had on their lives.”

“Scapegoating Qatar or trying to make it look like Qatar has been doing something nefarious in these mediations only helps the cause of prolonging the hostages being in captivity and prolonging the suffering of the people of Gaza,” Ansari asserted.