Qatar has issued a demand that Israel apologize for carrying out a strike in Doha against Hamas leaders and return to the negotiating table to work toward a new agreement involving a ceasefire and the release of hostages, two sources with knowledge of the matter told N12 today.
The Gulf state, which maintains ties with both Hamas and the United States, has played the central role in brokering contacts between the terror organization and Yerushalayim. Past mediation efforts led to prisoner exchanges, the recovery of hostages, and the identification of remains, leaving 48 Israelis still in captivity out of the 251 abducted on October 7, 2023.
The Trump administration acknowledged that securing another hostage release deal would be nearly impossible without Qatari involvement. Yet officials in Doha have expressed anger over Israel’s actions earlier this month, when its forces targeted Hamas officials in the Qatari capital after months of stalled negotiations.
Hamas has pushed for international assurances that the war would end entirely, a condition that would allow the group to retain its weapons and control of Gaza, in return for freeing those still held hostage.
According to one source, Qatar might be open to some flexibility in the phrasing of the demanded apology, recognizing that such a move would be politically difficult for Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu’s supporters to accept.
It remains uncertain whether issuing an apology would alter Qatar’s considerations about pursuing legal action against Israel at the international court over the strike.
On Sunday, Qatar’s Amiri Diwan announced that Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani had departed for New York, where he will attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly.
World leaders are assembling in New York as the conflict between Israel and Hamas nears the two-year mark. The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, with a global hunger monitoring organization warning that famine has already set in and could spread further by the end of the month.
{Matzav.com}
