Hamas has been weakened by the killings of leaders Yahya Sinwar in October and Ismail Haniyeh in July, to a point where it is unclear “how you maintain a negotiation process with all the main interlocutors dead”, he said.
Anna Jacobs, a Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, said “Hamas feels they already agreed to a US ceasefire plan over the summer”.
But that proposal never produced an agreement.
Jacobs said Hamas thinks Israel is “sabotaging negotiations by constantly adding on new conditions”, including keeping a military presence in Gaza.
COULD HAMAS LEAVE QATAR?
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari on Saturday (Nov 9) pushed back against reports suggesting that Hamas would be ejected from the country.
The “main goal of the (Hamas) office in Qatar is to be a channel of communication”, Ansari said, adding that it had “contributed to achieving a ceasefire in previous stages”.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that the group had received no indication from Qatar that it should leave.
Earlier, a diplomatic source told AFP that with Qatar pulling back in its mediation role, the Hamas office “no longer serves its purpose”.
Given the Hamas and Qatari denials, Jacobs said that “it’s unlikely that there will be a big, public closing of the Hamas office and kicking out the leadership”.
Qatar gave Hamas a similar message in April, prompting several group members to leave for Turkey – only to return two weeks later at the request of the US and Israel, when negotiations proved unworkable.
Krieg said Hamas now appeared to be in “limbo” and that demands were mounting for an expulsion in “a fairly short window of maybe a few weeks”, with the most likely destination being Iran.
Turkey has been touted as a new host but the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member is unlikely to want to upset the US, Krieg added.
According to Jacobs, it is possible that until US President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan 20 inauguration, “Hamas officials will stay out of Doha until more serious negotiations resume”.
