Qatar re-evaluates role as ceasefire talks mediator

Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said Qatar had been the victim of ‘point-scoring’ by politicians.

Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani gives a press conference in Doha on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Qatar was reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas after suffering criticism, its prime minister said on Wednesday.

“Qatar is in the process of a complete re-evaluation of its role,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told a Doha news conference.

“There is exploitation and abuse of the Qatari role,” he said, adding that Qatar had been the victim of “point-scoring” by “politicians who are trying to conduct election campaigns by slighting the state of Qatar”.

Qatar, with the US and Egypt, has been engaged in weeks of behind-the-scenes talks aiming to secure a truce in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The mediators had hoped to secure a ceasefire before the start of Ramadan, but progress repeatedly faltered without any cessation of hostilities during the Muslim holy month, which ended last week.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sheikh Mohammed said negotiations had stalled. “We are going through a sensitive stage with some stalling, and we are trying as much as possible to address this stalling,” he said.

Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012 with the blessing of the US, has rebuffed frequent criticism of its mediation from Israel, including by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There are growing fears that the months-long war in Gaza will spill over into a regional conflict after Iran’s first-ever direct attack on its arch-foe Israel last ­weekend.

The Qatari leader said Doha had “warned from the beginning of this war against the expansion of the circle of conflict, and today we see conflicts on different fronts”.

The war began when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that resulted in about 1200 deaths.

Israel’s military has waged a retaliatory offensive against Hamas that has killed 33,899 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack on Israel, but dozens were released in November.

AFP