Hamas could be forced to close its office in Qatar after the United States told the small Gulf state it could no longer tolerate Islamic militants based there.
Qatar, a key US partner in the Middle East, has hosted Hamas’ political offices for more than a decade and allowed many of the organization’s senior leaders to live there.
The request was reported by Reuters late Friday, but has not yet been officially confirmed.
“Having rejected repeated offers to release the hostages,[Hamas]leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of U.S. partner countries. We made that clear to Qatar,” a senior official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Critics of the U.S. request say it could potentially discourage engagement with elements of Hamas that are more inclined to compromise and increase its influence against more hostile state groups such as Iran. There is.
Hamas is still holding approximately 100 hostages captured in a surprise attack on Israel in October last year. Multiple rounds of negotiations aimed at securing an end to the 13-month war in Gaza have failed.
Analysts said the small but influential Gulf states were the main brokers in ceasefire negotiations and were likely to comply with the U.S. request. A U.S. official told Reuters that Qatar, which Washington has designated as a major non-NATO ally, made the request to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago.
Hamas leaders have been preparing to leave Qatar for months, citing Turkey and Iraq as alternatives. The group recently opened a political office in Baghdad.
Hamas officials have denied that Qatar has instructed the group to leave, and the Qatari Foreign Ministry has not responded to the report.
The request to Qatar comes in a flurry of moves as US President Joe Biden’s administration prepares a last-ditch effort to end Israeli military attacks in Gaza and Lebanon before handing over power to Donald Trump. It was released in the middle of a storm. put an end to the conflict.
However, there are no immediate signs of a breakthrough. Previous talks had been hampered by disagreements over whether the ceasefire would be final and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Observers blamed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to end the conflict, saying that Sinwar did not want to stop fighting that undermined Israel’s international standing and that Netanyahu did not want to end the conflict. The company said it intentionally invalidated a series of potential transactions. Domestic political reasons.
Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012, when the group left Damascus due to conflicts with the Syrian regime. The United States supported the move at the time, believing it would provide a useful link to Hamas.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has repeatedly stated over the past year that a Hamas office exists in Doha to enable negotiations with Hamas.
But after last year’s attack from Gaza into southern Israel, in which Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 250, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told leaders of Qatar and other parts of the region: There is a possibility that things cannot continue as normal.” Along with Hamas.
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On Friday, 14 Republican U.S. senators sent a letter to the State Department urging Washington to immediately freeze the assets of Hamas leaders in Qatar, extradite several Hamas leaders in Qatar, and force authorities to file charges against the group’s leaders. He asked them to request that the entertainment be stopped.
Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, turned the territory into a wasteland, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe.
Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency said Saturday that Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 Palestinians, including women and children, overnight, while Israeli forces said they had killed dozens of Hamas militants. did.
At least nine people, including children and women, were killed in an airstrike on tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern region of Khan Younis, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.
“Israeli fighter jets attacked” Fahad al-Sabah school, which was a shelter for “thousands of refugees” in Gaza City’s al-Tufa district, resulting in a second airstrike, including children. Five people were killed and about 22 injured. Basal said.
In recent months, Israeli forces have raided schools that serve as havens for what Israel claims are operating Palestinian militants.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that it had killed “dozens of terrorists” during air and ground clearance operations in the Jabalia area in northern Gaza.
Much of northern Gaza has been under siege for several weeks. The Israeli military denies any systematic attempt to force the evacuation of Palestinians in the area to the relative safety of the southern part of the area.
