Doha is no longer sitting on the sidelines of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, after suspending its involvement on Nov. 9, citing a lack of “good faith” on the interested parties’ part.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has traveled to Qatar and Israel in a bid to restart ceasefire talks, with Trump seeking a deal before he is sworn in on Jan. 20, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source briefed on the talks.
Witkoff met separately in late November with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as foreign minister, the source said.
The Qatar meeting took place on Nov. 22 and the Israel meeting the following day.
The source said of the Doha meeting that “both agreed a Gaza ceasefire is needed before Trump’s inauguration so that once the Trump administration takes office it can move on to other issues, like stabilizing Gaza and the region.”
An Israeli official told Reuters that Witkoff also met with the families of Israeli hostages. He “spoke with them about Team Trump’s efforts to try and broker the deal before inauguration,” the official said.
On Nov. 24, Sheikh Mohammed visited Vienna to meet with David Barnea, the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, who has been leading Israel’s negotiations with Qatar for the past 14 months.
A high-level Israeli delegation led by Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar is traveling to Cairo next week, according to Israeli and Arab reports.
Cairo also this week hosted separate negotiations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah Party aimed at signing a deal on joint management of Gaza after the war. The proposal, which Jerusalem opposes, would follow a truce with Israel, negotiators said on Tuesday.
Citing “informed sources,” the Qatar-owned London-based news outlet Al-Araby Al Jadeed claimed on Wednesday that Cairo had prepared a new draft proposal to serve as a basis for negotiations following “strong indications” by Hamas of willingness to sign a deal.
“There are plans for a subsequent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas to take place potentially in Doha soon, but no specific date has been set,” the Reuters source said.
On-and-off indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas to renew last year’s hostage release agreement have dragged on for months, with the United States, Egypt, Qatar and others acting as intermediaries.
Qatar also reportedly agreed to kick out Hamas leaders it was harboring in the Arab Gulf state when it announced its departure from the talks.
Various countries—including Turkey, Iran and Russia—have welcomed Hamas members in recent weeks after the terror group’s leadership was asked to leave Qatar, Israel’s Kan News reported on Monday night.
The Reuters source noted that Hamas negotiators are expected to return to Doha, the Qatari capital, for further talks in the near future.
On Monday, Trump issued a warning, stating there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released before his January 20 inauguration.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu praised Trump for his “strong statement.”
Jerusalem believes that 97 of the 251 hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, assault remain in Gaza after 425 days. Hamas is also holding two civilians who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.
The official figure includes 84 men, 13 women and two children under the age of five, among them 87 Israeli citizens and 10 foreign nationals—eight from Thailand, one from Nepal and one from Tanzania.
A total of 105 hostages were released in a November 2023 ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, with four having been returned before the deal. Eight hostages have been rescued alive by Israeli forces. The bodies of 37 have been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by Israeli troops.