Senior Hamas leaders left Qatar for Turkey last week, Arab diplomat says

Senior members of Hamas’s abroad leadership left Qatar last week for Turkey, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel.

The Arab diplomat confirms this development, first reported by the Kan public broadcaster, but stresses that Hamas’s abroad leadership spends much of its time in Turkey anyway when there are not meetings in Doha.

On November 8, the US revealed that it had asked Qatar to oust Hamas officials from Doha, which has hosted an office for the terror group since 2012. Washington said it made the request after Hamas had rejected repeated hostage deal proposals and had executed six captives, including an American citizen.

The next day, Qatar confirmed that it had halted its mediation efforts and a diplomat familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that Doha had asked Hamas leaders in late November to leave the country.

No timeline was given, however, for when the Hamas officials were to leave.

Turkey offers a practical option for Hamas, given that relatives of many of the terror group’s abroad leadership live there. However, hosting them formally risks tensions with the Biden administration that said earlier this month that none of its allies should be hosting Hamas. US President-elect Donald Trump is not expected to take a softer line on the matter either.