Qatar says Trump pressure will be needed to clinch phase 2 of Gaza deal

Doha official tells US outlet it is relying on president to reprise aggressive rhetoric that played key role in securing truce and hostage release agreement, as talks set to resume

US President Donald Trump gestures to US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff (left) in the Oval Office of the White House on February 3, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Jim WATSON / AFP)
US President Donald Trump gestures to US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff (left) in the Oval Office of the White House on February 3, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Jim WATSON / AFP)

Qatar expects US President Donald Trump to continue piling pressure on Israel and Hamas to stick to a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza and expand the agreement into a planned second stage, a top official said Monday.

Talks for a phase two following the initial 42-day stage are slated to kick off this week, and the subject will be on the agenda when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Trump at the White House Tuesday, the Israeli premier’s office said.

Getting there will be a challenge: Under pressure from right-wing political allies, Netanyahu and his defense chief have indicated a willingness to shelve the ceasefire and resume fighting; on Monday Trump sounded a pessimistic note on the deal’s prospects, telling reporters that he had “no guarantees that the peace is going to hold.”

But Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Doha was expecting Trump to play a key role in getting phase two talks to the goal line, after the then-president-elect employed assertive rhetoric and harsh threats to help clinch the deal’s first phase, which began a day before his January 20 inauguration.

“We do believe this thing never would have been there if it was not for President Trump’s statement and President Trump’s assertiveness, and we are counting on that for the continuation of implementation and going through the next phases,” al-Ansari told the far-right Breitbart news site.

“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,” he added.

Netanyahu’s office said early Tuesday that a delegation would be dispatched to Doha this week for talks on the second stage of the deal, following meetings in Washington between Netanyahu and Trump’s advisers, including his point man on the negotiations, special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, accompanied by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, and Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman in Washington on February 4, 2025 (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

The negotiators had been expected to reconvene Monday under the terms of the outline mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, but Netanyahu opted to huddle with the American side first.

“Israel is preparing for the working-level delegation to leave for Doha at the end of this week in order to discuss technical details related to the continued implementation of the agreement,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Tuesday.

Al-Ansari, who is also a senior adviser to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said he hoped Trump used his meeting with Netanyahu to press the Israeli leader on keeping to the ceasefire.

“We hope… 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,” al-Ansari said. “We know that President Trump believes in the process and it is through the help of President Trump that so many hostages—most of the hostages now—are back with their families and we hope that we can bring the rest of the hostages back home and we hope we can help the people of Gaza recognize a day of peace and hope.”

Majed Al-Ansari appears during the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit at Sheraton New York Times Square on September 23, 2024 in New York City. (John Lamparski/Getty Images for Concordia Summit/AFP)

While waiting to enter office, Trump had threatened “hell to pay” if a deal was not reached by January 20, dispatching Witkoff and other transition officials to push the talks forward. However, he has since far declined to put the same level of public backing behind the deal staying in place through its next two stages.

So far, 13 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 have been freed under the deal’s first 42-day phase, which is set to see 33 captives go free in batches, including what is believed to be eight bodies, in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian terror convicts and others held in Israeli jails.

Five Thai nationals were also let go under a separate arrangement.

The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical, and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, while displaced Palestinians have been allowed to begin returning to the north, and Hamas has demonstrated renewed control.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen deploy and take up positions ahead of the release of hostages by Hamas in Gaza Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem)

The second stage of the accord is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining living hostages held in Gaza in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, an end to the war and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.

Nearly half of the 76 remaining hostages kidnapped on October 7 are believed to be dead.

However, Netanyahu is under intense pressure from the far right to order the military to return to fighting until Hamas is completely destroyed. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s key partners, has vowed to topple the government if the war isn’t relaunched.

Israelis call for the release of hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza outside the US Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv, February 3, 2025. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Trump, meanwhile, says he is committed to ending conflicts that could entangle the US.

Mira Resnick, a former deputy assistant US secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs, said Trump may “have little patience for political woes of Netanyahu if it gets in the way of the broader goals of this administration.”

“The president started his term by saying that he wanted the ceasefire to be in place by January 20. That’s what he got,” Resnick said. “He is invested in this because he was able to take credit for it.”

In Washington, Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages not slated to be released in stage one, called on Trump to use American leverage to keep Netanyahu committed to the agreement.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan Zangauker has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, speaks at a press conference in Tel Aviv on November 23, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

“I want President Trump to know there are certain extreme elements from within Israel who are trying to torpedo his vision,” said Zangauker, who plans to join a Tuesday rally outside the White House. “We are representative of the vast, vast majority of Israel. The ultra-extremists are blackmailing the prime minister to do their bidding.”

In the Breitbart interview, Qatar’s al-Ansari also tore into Israel’s new ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter, who recently accused Doha 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 the funding it has sent to Gaza that has allowed the terror group to prioritize building up its arsenal to attack Israel.

“We have been the firefighters for so much time now and then we are working on extinguishing fires lit by people with 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,” he said.

Released hostage Keith Siegel reunites with his family at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) on February 1, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

The spokesman noted that Israel’s diplomatic corps had done little for the hostages’ freedom compared to the effort Qatar had put in, noting that relatives had sent him messages of thanks when their loved ones were released.

“I would ask the ambassador to go and talk to the hostage families and go and listen to the hostage families which have been neglected by some officials for a long time,” he said. “Ask them what they think of the role of Qatar in these negotiations. We have been putting sweat and blood into this mediation.”

Lazar Berman contributed to this report.

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