Around 100 hostages have to date been launched from Gaza
Doha:
As world leaders feted Qatar for brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas final week, its negotiators doubled down on their mediation efforts, fearful the ceasefire was about to break down earlier than it began.
The truce and the settlement for accompanying prisoner and hostage exchanges have been loosely worded. The tiny Gulf state’s negotiators knew Israel and Hamas had but to agree on when, or how, the ceasefire and the swap would start, based on sources in Qatar, the Palestinian Territories and Egypt accustomed to the high-stakes talks.
It was essential to make clear all of the factors within the settlement and ensure they meant the identical factor to Israel and Hamas, a supply briefed on the negotiations stated.
For instance, the Israeli aspect had pledged to “park” tanks it was utilizing contained in the Gaza strip, however no one had agreed on what that meant on the bottom, stated the supply, who requested to not be named due to the delicate nature of the talks.
One of Qatar’s lead negotiators, profession diplomat Abdullah Al Sulaiti, was fearful. “I thought we were going to lose it and that the agreement wouldn’t fly,” he stated in an interview.
One of Qatar’s lead negotiators Abdullah Al Sulaiti (R) works inside an operation room set as much as coordinate the truce and launch of hostages between Israel and Hamas, on the National Command Centre in Doha, Qatar November 26, 2023
Photo Credit: REUTERS
To stay targeted, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani had cleared his agenda, cancelling deliberate journeys to Moscow and London, the supply briefed on the negotiations stated.
Inside one in all his Doha workplaces on the afternoon of Wednesday, Nov. 22, Sheikh Mohammed kicked off a brand new spherical of negotiations simply hours after the truce had been unveiled, the supply stated.
In the prime minister’s fundamental assembly have been the Mossad chief, David Barnea, who had flown in from Israel for a minimum of the third time for the reason that starting of the battle, and a delegation of Egyptian intelligence officers. The Qataris used a separate room to name Hamas delegates who had remained of their villa workplace throughout city, the supply stated.
Qatar’s overseas ministry advised reporters that Hamas and Israel negotiated in Doha till “the early morning” of Nov. 23 and agreed on a plan to implement the truce deal the subsequent day.
This account reveals particulars of that essential assembly, which ran for 9 hours and is described right here for the primary time. It additionally gives a glimpse of the muscular method utilized by Qatar to speed up shuttle-style talks between what one official concerned within the negotiations referred to as “two parties that have zero level of confidence in each other.”
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US Department of State and the Hamas political workplace in Doha didn’t reply to detailed questions for this text. The workplace of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which oversees Mossad, declined to remark.
Instead of merely passing on messages from one aspect to the opposite, the Qataris’ method to mediation is to be proactive and throw their weight into negotiations, based on a U.S. official accustomed to the matter and Egyptian safety sources.
Doha had already used such techniques to push for options to shut the gaps in calls for between Israel and Hamas, notably when negotiators tackled the delicate problem of hostages forward of the primary truce announcement, the US official stated.
At the beginning, the Netanyahu administration stated it could not swap Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for hostages held in Gaza.
Hamas, which in 2011 had obtained the liberation of greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel in change for the discharge of 1 Israeli soldier, made excessive calls for, folks accustomed to the negotiations stated.
The two sides ultimately agreed on a ratio of three Palestinian prisoners for every civilian hostage.
Hostages held by Hamas being escorted by members of the International Red Cross, as a part of a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel within the Gaza Strip, November 30, 2023
Photo Credit: REUTERS
The key, the Qatari official concerned within the negotiations stated, was to amend what was being proposed by one aspect till it turned acceptable by the opposite.
“We say ‘Listen, let’s have a second round of discussions with you before we send the proposal,'” he stated, talking on the situation of anonymity.
“If we decided to be like postmen and deliver letters only, I doubt that we would have finished this agreement.”
On Nov. 22, Qatari emissaries labored the telephones and moved backwards and forwards between completely different rooms, the supply briefed on the negotiations stated.
Qatari negotiators shepherded Israel and Hamas to agree on precisely the place in Gaza Israeli tanks could be stationed through the truce. Similarly, they brokered an settlement on how Israeli troopers would meet a Hamas demand to vacate Gaza hospitals, together with Al Shifa, the place they’d taken positions, the supply stated.
The negotiators, a few of whom have been concerned in Israel-Hamas mediations since 2014, additionally wanted to work out a vital ingredient: a safeguard mechanism designed to make sure that any small breach within the ceasefire wouldn’t trigger it to break down, he stated.
They managed to get each side to log out on particular procedures they must comply with within the occasion of an incident, reviewing detailed situations equivalent to gunfire or tank actions, he stated.
The mechanism was activated shortly after the truce got here into drive, when Israeli troopers opened hearth on Palestinians attempting to maneuver to northern Gaza, the supply stated.
About 5 hours into the assembly, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke on the telephone with U.S. President Joe Biden and mentioned the deal’s implementation, based on the White House readout of the decision.
After the marathon session was over some hours later, Qatar’s overseas ministry introduced the truce would come into force on Friday, Nov. 24 at 7 a.m. in Gaza.
As one of many only a few international locations with an open line of communication to each Israel and Hamas, gas-rich Qatar has emerged because the lead go-to negotiator within the weeks-long battle that started with Hamas assault on Oct. 7. In addition to the U.S., Russia has additionally praised the position of its “Qatari friends.”
Qatar’s mediation has additionally elicited criticism within the West, with some U.S. and European politicians accusing the Gulf state of supporting a gaggle, Hamas, they regard as a terrorist group.
The ambivalence was on full show when Sheikh Tamim landed in Berlin final month: “State visit by the blood emir,” stated an Oct. 12 banner headline on German newspaper Bild.
Qatari officers say they started internet hosting Hamas representatives in Doha in 2012 at Washington’s request, when the group’s political workplace was ousted from Syria. Israel vets all monetary transfers Qatar makes to Palestinians in Gaza, Qatari sources have stated.
Qatar’s private connection to the Hamas group’s key figures is maybe a very powerful issue behind Qatar’s means to successfully negotiate on this battle, stated Mehran Kamrava, professor of presidency at Georgetown University in Qatar.
“They say, ‘Look. We’ve provided an office and logistical support at tremendous reputational cost…We were the only ones who were there for you when you needed us and now is the time when you need to return the favour,'” he stated.
Despite proximity to Hamas officers, Qatari negotiators didn’t converse on to the group’s leaders in Gaza, however via its representatives based mostly in Doha. The communication chain broke a number of occasions, at one level for 2 full consecutive days, through the month and a half of intense preventing that preceded the Nov. 24 truce, due to energy outage or Israeli shutdown, the supply briefed on the talks stated.
Mossad usually performs a diplomatic position in Israel’s dealings with Qatar, as a result of the 2 international locations do not need formal diplomatic relations, a state of affairs that one Western supply within the Gulf stated additionally slowed the method.
Netanyahu has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which guidelines Gaza, in response to the Oct. 7 rampage by the group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200 folks and took 240 hostages.
In response, Israel bombarded the territory for seven weeks and killed greater than 15,000 Palestinians, based on well being authorities within the coastal strip.
Since the pause in preventing started, round 100 hostages have been launched from Gaza, together with non-Israelis. Israel has launched a minimum of 210 Palestinians from its jails and allowed reduction organizations to extend shipments of humanitarian support and gas to Gaza.
But after seven days of truce, hostilities may resume as quickly as Friday until one other extension is agreed.
Speaking to Reuters days after the ceasefire began, Al Sulaiti, the Qatari mediator, stated the work was removed from over.
“At the beginning I thought achieving an agreement would be the most difficult step,” stated the civil servant who has been concerned in Israel-Hamas mediations since 2014. “I’ve discovered that sustaining the agreement itself is equally challenging.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)