Hamas says Mashaal to remain in Qatar

Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal will remain headquartered in Qatar, even as the Gulf nation expels many prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, the terror group said Monday night.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Israel Radio that Qatar had made no request that Mashaal leave its territory, despite several unconfirmed media reports that the organization’s leader was looking for a new host country.

Leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group and allied clerics said on Saturday that they were departing Qatar, where they had sought refuge following the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in June 2013 and the crackdown on his supporters.

Their presence in Qatar had severely strained Doha’s relations with Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all of which view the more than 85-year-old Islamist movement as a threat. The expulsion threatened to further isolate the group, which rose to power in Egypt through a string of post-Arab Spring elections but suffered a dramatic fall from grace during Morsi’s divisive year in office.

Turkey may offer refuge to the banished officials, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday. Erdogan told reporters on his return from a visit to Qatar that Turkey would “review case by case” any request for refuge in Turkey.

The pro-government Star newspaper on Tuesday quoted Erdogan as saying: “If there is no hindrance, then things could be made easier for them.”

Mashaal has been based in Qatar since 2012, after leaving Damascus when Hamas broke with President Bashar Assad over the Syrian civil war.

In August, Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported that Doha had threatened to expel Mashaal during Operation Protective Edge if the Gaza-based terror organization agreed to the terms of a ceasefire framework put forth by Egypt, which did not address Hamas’s demands to end the conflict (such as the establishment of a seaport and airport in Gaza).

The report was unconfirmed, and the organization ended up largely accepting the Egyptian demand for an unconditional ceasefire with Israel, agreeing to discuss the specific terms of the long-term truce in later talks.

According to Al-Hayat, Qatar and Egypt were locked in a power struggle throughout the Gaza conflict, with Doha demanding that Cairo give it a role in ending the crisis. Egypt, however, reportedly rejected the demand, conditioning its agreement on Qatar formally apologizing for its policy toward Egypt since the Morsi’s ouster.

Qatar was a close ally of Morsi, and relations between Cairo and Doha have been tense since his ouster, with Egypt accusing Qatar of backing the Brotherhood. Egypt has accused Qatar’s Al-Jazeera network and its offshoots of serving as a mouthpiece for the group in its campaign against the government.

The tiny Gulf nation’s expulsion of the Brotherhood, branded a terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, signals it is moving to mend the diplomatic rift triggered by its support of the group.

Egyptian security and military officials said Qatar agreed to “gradually” expel the group’s members and allies. They said that up to 120 people could leave as part of the agreement, including some facing charges of inciting violence in Egypt. The officials also said that broadcaster al-Jazeera would tone down its criticism of Egypt as part of the deal.

Calls have circulated in the US Congress to isolate Qatar — a state that has polished its pro-Western image in recent years, welcoming in foreign universities, backing the global news channel Al-Jazeera and prepping to host the 2022 World Cup — for its championing of Hamas.

Since Hamas assumed control in Gaza in 2007, Qatar has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the territory and backed Hamas diplomatically.

Once cordial ties between Israel and Qatar — the first Persian Gulf state to establish ties with the Jewish state in 1996 — became tense in 2007 when Doha became one of the only countries to back Hamas, after the group booted the more moderate Palestinian Authority out of the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup. In 2012, its then-emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, became the first head of state to visit Gaza under Hamas rule, pledging to raise $400 million toward reconstruction.

Qatar’s rationale — shared by Erdogan, the Turkish leader — was that Islamist groups were proliferating and inevitably would play a role in the region, and therefore it was important for allies of Western nations to maintain ties.

By this summer and the Gaza war, Israel was labeling Qatar a terrorist haven, in part because it is harboring Mashaal.

JTA contributed to this report.