Qatar confirms departure of Hamas leaders, says group’s Doha mission may remain
Terror group’s political bureau serves no purpose in absence of negotiations, Qatari foreign ministry spokesman tells reporters, but no decision yet on shutting it down permanently
A Hamas office in the Qatari capital has not yet been shut down, but negotiators for the terror group are no longer in the country, Qatar said on Tuesday, indicating that the decision could still be reversed.
On Sunday, an Arab diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity told The Times of Israel that senior members of Hamas’s political arm had decamped for Turkey, apparently after the US pressured Doha to stop hosting the group.
“The leaders of Hamas that are within the negotiating team are now not in Doha,” Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said Tuesday.
On November 8, the Biden administration revealed that it had asked Qatar to oust Hamas leaders amid Washington’s frustration with the terror group rejecting repeated hostage deal proposals.
Qatar later confirmed asking Hamas to leave but insisted that it made the decision on its own due to frustration with both sides’ refusal to engage constructively in negotiations. Moreover, it framed the move as reversible, insisting that it is prepared to resume its role as mediator if Israel and Hamas change their approach to the talks.
But he added that Hamas’s mission in Qatar, opened in 2012, could still remain open in the future.
Al-Ansari said during a press conference that the Hamas political office in Doha has not been closed permanently. If such a decision is made, it will be announced by Qatar and not through other means, he added, in an apparent shot at Biden administration officials, who had announced the move on November 8.
Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, had led months of fruitless negotiations for a truce in the Gaza war but the Gulf state said earlier this month it was pausing its mediation efforts.
“The mediation process right now… is suspended unless we take a decision to reverse that which is based on the positions of both sides,” Ansari said on Tuesday.
“The office of Hamas in Doha was created for the sake of the mediation process. Obviously, when there is no mediation process, the office itself doesn’t have any function,” he added, declining to confirm whether Qatar had asked the Hamas officials to leave, as has been reported.
A senior Hamas leader told AFP on Monday that “no one has asked us to leave” and rebuffed reports that members had relocated to Turkey, where many of them have families and already spend significant time, according to the Arab diplomat.
“Leaders from different levels in the political echelon in Hamas make coordinated visits to Turkey from time to time,” the Hamas official said.
Turkey confirmed on Monday that Hamas’s key foreign leaders are in Ankara while insisting that it has not opened an office for them — an apparent effort to avoid the ire of the Biden administration. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller still cautioned Turkey yesterday against hosting Hamas officials at all.
For its part, Israel has begun engaging more intensively with Turkish officials in order to jumpstart hostage negotiations. Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar traveled to Ankara over the weekend to meet with his Turkish counterpart on the matter, the Arab diplomat said.
The development may call into question the purpose of ousting Hamas from Doha, with the sides apparently planning to conduct negotiations in a similar manner in Ankara.
After Israel killed Hamas’s Gaza-based leader Yayha Sinwar in mid-October, the US voiced optimism that it would mark a step forward in efforts to end the war and return the hostages, framing Sinwar as the main obstacle to a deal.
But successive rounds of negotiations have made little headway since a one-week pause in fighting last year brokered by Qatar, during which 105 hostages were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas earlier this month rejected a proposal from Egypt and Qatar for a short-term truce in exchange for a small number of hostages, demanding an open-ended ceasefire instead.
Israel has repeatedly vowed it will not stop fighting until it achieves its war objectives — to eliminate Hamas and bring the hostages home.
In April, Qatar said it was re-evaluating its mediation role during an impasse in negotiations, prompting several group members to leave for Turkey — only to return two weeks later at the request of the United States and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with government ministers and top defense officials Sunday night to discuss the hostage crisis. Security chiefs were reportedly expected to warn that Israel would need to show more flexibility in talks to free the hostages, who are facing dire conditions.
According to a poll aired by Channel 12 news last week, 69 percent of Israelis said they support a hostage deal that would end the war compared to 20% who prefer continuing fighting.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
