DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Qatar has decided to suspend its key mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas, officials said Saturday, after growing frustration with the lack of progress on a cease-fire deal for Gaza.
However, Qatar is highly likely to return to the efforts if both sides show “serious political willingness” to reach a deal, according to an official with Egypt, the other key mediator.
Qatar told Israel and Hamas that it can’t continue to mediate “as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith” and “as a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose” in Qatar, a diplomatic source briefed on the matter said.
Hamas leadership hosted by Qatar were told they would have to leave if they weren’t ready to engage in serious negotiations, the source said.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the Biden administration had informed Qatar two weeks ago that the continued operation of the Hamas office in Doha was no longer useful and the Hamas delegation should be expelled.
A senior U.S. official said that after Hamas rejected the last proposal for a cease-fire, Qatar accepted the advice and informed the Hamas delegation of the decision 10 days ago. A senior Hamas official said they were aware of Qatar’s decision to suspend mediation efforts, “but no one told us to leave.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Israeli prime minister’s office had no comment.
Hamas has repeatedly called for an end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a condition for any cease-fire deal. Israel seeks the return of all hostages and insists on a presence in Gaza.
There continued to be no end in sight to the Israel-Hamas war on Saturday. In Gaza, three separate Israeli strikes killed at least 16 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.
One of the strikes hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s eastern Tufah neighborhood, killing at least six people. Two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child were among the dead, the territory’s Health Ministry said. Israel’s army said the strike targeted a militant belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, offering no evidence or details.
Seven people were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering, according to Nasser Hospital. It said the dead included two women and a child.
A third strike hit tents in the courtyard of central Gaza’s main hospital, including one serving as a police point, Palestinian medical officials said. At least three people were killed and a local journalist was wounded, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah. It was the eighth Israeli attack on the compound since March.
The strikes came as Israel announced the first delivery of humanitarian aid in weeks to the territory’s hungry, devastated north.
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said Saturday that 11 aid trucks containing food, water and medical equipment reached the enclave’s far north on Thursday for the first time since Israel began a new military campaign there last month.
But not all the aid reached the agreed drop-off points, according to the the U.N. World Food Program, which was involved in the delivery process. In the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, Israeli troops stopped one convoy bound for nearby Beit Lahiya and ordered the supplies to be offloaded, WFP spokesperson Alia Zaki said.
A report issued Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said there’s a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza, the territory’s most isolated area.
COGAT rejected the IPC’s finding and said the report relied “on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests.”
More than a year of war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
