SIRIUS ‘Federal Territory/, November 10. /TASS/. Qatar, which has been trying to mediate talks between Israel and Hamas, seems to have lost hope, Russian presidential envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said.
"It looks like, there is little hope. They are competent, well-informed people. First, they tried to help, but certain disappointment is felt," he told TASS when asked to comment on Doha’s decision to drop mediation between Israel and Hamas.
Qatari Foreign Ministry Spokesman Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari said earlier that the country’s authorities had decided to suspend their mediatory efforts toward a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as the parties to the conflict look unwilling to end it.
Talks on Gaza
A Qatar-and Egypt-brokered week-long humanitarian ceasefire was declared in the Gaza Strip in late November 2023. According to the Israeli side, as many as 110 hostages were released during this period, but on December 1, 2023, the ceasefire was violated triggering the resumption of hostilities in the Palestinian enclave.
Following several rounds of consultations involving Qatar, the United States, and Egypt this August, the parties to the conflict ultimately failed to reach accord on the parameters of the deal.
Another round of Gaza ceasefire consultations involving chief of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad David Barnea and CIA Director William Burns was held in Doha on October 27 and 28. The Qatari side was represented by Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani. Ahead of the trip to Doha, on October 25, Barnea met in Cairo with Egypt’s senior law enforcement officers, as this country is also a mediator between the parties to the conflict. But the sides failed to agree on Gaza ceasefire terms again.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.