Qatar has told Hamas leaders to leave the country after pressure from the US

Author:
Iryna Perepechko
Date:

Qatar has told Hamas leaders to leave the country after pressure from the US. Allegedly, this happened about 10 days ago, after intensive discussions with US officials.

This is reported by the Financial Times with reference to sources.

More than 100 Israeli hostages were freed last year thanks to a deal brokered by Qatar. But since then, there have been no developments in the issue of the release of hostages, so countries that are US partners should not "welcome" Hamas leaders on their territories.

"We made that clear to Qatar after Hamas rejected yet another offer to release the hostages a few weeks ago," a White House official told the FT.

Sources of the publication say that now the leaders of Hamas from Qatar will move to Turkey. Allegedly, the country has been harboring political figures of the group for a long time, and since the beginning of the war in Gaza on November 7, 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has actively supported Hamas.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey did not comment on this information.

Meanwhile, an Arab diplomat said Hamas officials recently visited Turkey, Iran, Algeria and Mauritania and discussed the possibility of a move.

Hamas leaders have been in Qatar since 2012, when they left their bases in Damascus because of the Syrian civil war. Then it was the USA that asked Qatar to open a channel of communication with the Palestinian group.

The war between Israel and Hamas

The new escalation of the war has been ongoing since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants launched a massive rocket attack on the southern and central regions of Israel, invaded the countryʼs territory and killed 1,195 civilians, and took more than 250 hostages and took them to Gaza. Some of them were released, and some have already died. In response, Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas claims that more than 40 000 Gazans were killed during the Israeli operation, and hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their homes. It is impossible to confirm these data, especially regarding the dead. Hamas does not separate civilians and fighters in its statistics.

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