Qatar: We’re counting on Trump to stand behind efforts to reach 2nd phase of truce
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson says Doha is counting on US President Donald Trump to stand behind efforts to reach the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal when he meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow.
“We are counting on President Trump and the administration to give the clear message that they are behind the negotiation process and they are behind phase two and that they will support this process throughout the peacemaking,” Majed al-Ansari says in an interview with the Breitbart news site.
“The 16th day [of the ceasefire] was supposed to be the day when the Israeli delegation comes to Doha and we start the negotiations of phase two. However, they have not sent the delegation yet, but we are in contact with both sides to make sure they remain committed to that. From what I understand, Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to meet with President Trump first and have a discussion with him and then send the delegation,” he adds.
Al-Ansari adds that Qatar hopes “Trump will convey to Prime Minister Netanyahu how he believes in the mediation process, he believes in bringing the hostages back home, and he believes that the negotiations should go forward.
“We hope that upon returning to Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu will immediately dispatch his negotiation team to Doha to begin the phase 2 talks with [US Mideast envoy] Steve Witkoff and the negotiations continue.”
In a recent Fox News interview, Israel’s new ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter accused Qatar of playing a “duplicitous game of funding the pyromaniacs and funding the firefighters at the same time.” Critics of Doha have pointed to its close ties to Hamas and its funding to Gaza that has allowed the terror group to prioritize building up its arsenal to attack Israel.
Qatar, in turn, has argued that Israel and the US lobbied aggressively for Doha to make such payments in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Al-Ansari tears into Leiter for his comments.
“If we spent a dime of effort on every single individual who tried to scapegoat using Qatar or tried to use Qatar as a political punching bag we wouldn’t have any time to do any of our mediation work,” al-Ansari says. “We have been the firefighters for so much time now… working on extinguishing fires lit by… megalomaniacs and narcissists and people with larger-than-life egos who just want to realize their personal ambitions, even if it meant costing lives of thousands of innocent civilians.”
Al-Ansari urges Leiter to ask the families of hostages what they think of Qatar’s role. “I have certainly been in contact with some of the hostage families on the day they have seen their loved ones back, the day a mother hugs her child coming back from being a hostage in Gaza — she sent me a text message thanking Qatar for its role.”