Qatar’s chief negotiator says Doha ‘frustrated’ by slow pace of Gaza talks: ‘There are lives at stake’

DOHA, Qatar — Qatar’s chief negotiator voices frustration over talks for a truce-hostage release agreement in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.

“We’re definitely frustrated by the slowness, sometimes, of the process in the negotiation. This is an urgent matter. There are lives at stake here if this military operation continues day by day,” Mohammed Al-Khulaifi says.

“We’ve been working continuously in the last days to try to bring the parties together and revive the agreement that has been endorsed by the two sides,” the Qatari minister of state says.

“And we will remain committed to this, in spite of the difficulties,” he adds.

During the long mediation process, Qatar has been the target of direct criticism from Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least two of Netanyahu’s aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha’s interests in Israel, prompting an Israeli criminal probe. Qatar has dismissed the attacks as a “smear campaign.”

Earlier in March, an investigation by the Shin Bet security service ascribed an increase in Hamas’s military strength before the October 7 attack to fund the terror group received from the Gulf state. Qatar has rebuffed the accusation as “false.”

“We’ve been receiving those types of criticism and negative comments since the early times of our involvement,” Al-Khulaifi says.

“Critiques without any context, such as the ones that we keep hearing from Netanyahu himself, are often just noise,” he adds.

Al-Khulaifi rejects recent remarks Netanyahu made to the US-based evangelical Christian channel Daystar saying that Qatar had promoted “anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism” on US college campuses.

“His claims about Qatar’s educational partnerships have been repeatedly disproven. Everything we do is transparent,” the Qatari official adds.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.