Qatar says Hamas failure to return last two slain hostages can’t ‘obstruct’ Gaza plan

A spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said that the two deceased hostages whose bodies remain in Gaza should not be seen as grounds to delay the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace deal.

The comments from Doha, a key mediator of the ceasefire, drew backlash from the organization representing hostages’ families. They came as efforts continue to locate the bodies of the two slain captives, police officer Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak, nearly two months after the agreement mandating their return took effect.

The bodies of 26 deceased hostages have been returned gradually, without any assurances or fixed timeline, over the course of the past seven weeks. In an interview with an Al-Araby Al-Jadeed podcast that aired Saturday, the Qatari spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, says the issue of the two remaining bodies potentially delaying the next phase “is the most important” right now.

“We don’t believe Israel should be allowed to obstruct the implementation of the agreement over these two bodies,” he said. “At the same time, of course, the Palestinian side is working to retrieve the bodies and preempt any Israeli pretexts.”

The first phase of the deal, delineated in an October 9 ceasefire agreement, includes the return of all hostages, living and deceased. The rest of the US-backed plan, which has not been formally agreed on, would see Israeli troops withdraw further from Gaza as Hamas disarms and hands control over to a transitional governing body and multinational peacekeeping force.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement responding to Ansari that Doha should be focusing its efforts on ensuring the remains are released, as per the deal’s first phase.

“We remind the mediators, primarily Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, that the return of the hostages is the core of this agreement,” said the forum, which has represented most of the captives’ families. “Instead of pressuring Israel not to ‘use delays as an excuse,’ the mediators should direct their full efforts and leverage all available pressure toward Hamas, the terrorist organization that has failed to meet its commitments under the agreement.”

Ansari’s comments are significant because Qatar has acted as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas. The US has also expressed eagerness for the deal to move forward, and it was endorsed by the UN Security Council earlier this month.

But Hamas has so far refused to agree on the matter of demilitarization, and few countries have volunteered for the multinational force meant to oversee the Strip’s security.

The territory is now split between Israeli and Hamas control. Israel insists the Strip must be demilitarized before Trump’s plan can advance.

“The current endeavor for Qatar and its partners in the region is to move from the first phase to the second [of the plan], and thus achieve a sustainable peace that can comprehensively end the state of war in the Gaza Strip,” Ansari said. “There are significant challenges in reaching this stage of truce, but the focus now is on maintaining it long enough to reach a political solution in which all parties in the region, along with the international community and the United States, work together to make this plan a success and end the war.”

Gvili and Rinthalak were both abducted in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that launched the war. Gvili, a police officer, was killed fending off the Hamas invasion at Kibbutz Alumim. Rinthalak was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri, where he worked in agriculture.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera reported that teams from the Red Cross and from the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, were searching for the remains of an “Israeli prisoner” in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.

Beit Lahiya lies on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line. Gvili is the lone Israeli still held in Gaza.

“Hamas has proven it knows exactly where all the hostages are located. When it chooses to, it directs recovery teams to recover them,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in its statement.

At a rally on Saturday night, Ran’s father, Itzik Gvili, said there must be “no next phase” to the current Gaza ceasefire, and “no ‘day after’ in Gaza,” until Hamas returns the last two bodies.

The ceasefire plan, the US president has said, is meant to create an opening for Israel to normalize relations with more of its neighbors. But Ansari said that any potential normalization between Doha and Israel would only occur if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.

“Any normalization with Israel will only occur within the framework of a solution to the Palestinian issue,” he said. “The absence of a peace process for the Palestinians means there will be no stability in the region.”