DOHA, Qatar — A Hamas office in the Qatari capital has not yet been shut down, but negotiators for the terror group are no longer in the country, Qatar said on Tuesday, indicating that the decision could still be reversed.
On Sunday, an Arab diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity told The Times of Israel that senior members of Hamas’s political arm had decamped for Turkey, apparently after the US pressured Doha to stop hosting the group.
“The leaders of Hamas that are within the negotiating team are now not in Doha,” Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said Tuesday.
But he added that Hamas’s mission in Qatar, opened in 2012, could still remain open in the future.
“The decision to… close down the office permanently, is a decision that you will hear about from us directly,” he added.
Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, had led months of fruitless negotiations for a truce in the Gaza war but the Gulf state said earlier this month it was pausing its mediation efforts.
“The mediation process right now… is suspended unless we take a decision to reverse that which is based on the positions of both sides,” Ansari said on Tuesday.
“The office of Hamas in Doha was created for the sake of the mediation process. Obviously, when there is no mediation process, the office itself doesn’t have any function,” he added, declining to confirm whether Qatar had asked the Hamas officials to leave, as has been reported.
A senior Hamas leader told AFP on Monday that “no one has asked us to leave” and rebuffed reports that members had relocated to Turkey, where many of them have families and already spend significant time, according to the Arab diplomat.
“Leaders from different levels in the political echelon in Hamas make coordinated visits to Turkey from time to time,” the Hamas official said.
After Israel killed Hamas’s Gaza-based leader Yayha Sinwar in mid-October, the US voiced optimism that it would mark a step forward in efforts to end the war and return the hostages, framing Sinwar as the main obstacle to a deal.
But successive rounds of negotiations have made little headway since a one-week pause in fighting last year brokered by Qatar, during which 105 hostages were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas earlier this month rejected a proposal from Egypt and Qatar for a short-term truce in exchange for a small number of hostages, demanding an open-ended ceasefire instead.
Israel has repeatedly vowed it will not stop fighting until it achieves its war objectives — to eliminate Hamas and bring the hostages home.
In April, Qatar said it was re-evaluating its mediation role during an impasse in negotiations, prompting several group members to leave for Turkey — only to return two weeks later at the request of the United States and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with government ministers and top defense officials Sunday night to discuss the hostage crisis. Security chiefs were reportedly expected to warn that Israel would need to show more flexibility in talks to free the hostages, who are facing dire conditions.
According to a poll aired by Channel 12 news last week, 69 percent of Israelis said they support a hostage deal that would end the war compared to 20% who prefer continuing fighting.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.