Hamas claims Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has rejected its offer of releasing two more hostages — an allegation that Israel has dismissed as “propaganda”.
Hopes had been running high among the families of those held kidnapped after two American women, Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter Natalie, were released back into Israel on Friday night.
Hours later Hamas announced that it would release Nurit Yitzhak, 80, and Yokheved Lifshitz, 85, “using the same procedures” involved in the release of Raanan and her daughter, in which Qatar had been acting as mediator.
Lifshitz was kidnapped along with her 83-year-old husband, Oded, from their burnt-out home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yitzhak, also known as Nurit Cooper, was also kidnapped from Nir Oz with her husband, Amiram, 85.
But on Saturday night Hamas issued a statement, saying: “We were planning to release both of them due to compelling humanitarian reasons and we asked nothing in return. However, the Israeli occupation government refused to receive them both.”
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The office of Israel’s prime minister quickly refuted the claims as “mendacious propaganda by Hamas”, adding: “We will continue to do everything necessary to bring all the captives and missing back home.”
Israel has confirmed there are at least 212 hostages, mostly civilians, of more than 40 nationalities, who were abducted on October 7 after the Hamas rocket barrage and invasion of its terrorists by air, land and sea.
However, Abu Obaida, spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed there were between 200 and 250 hostages, suggesting that they are unable to confirm the exact number and that the hostages are spread across multiple terror factions.
The hostages include babies, Holocaust survivors and whole families. Last week Hamas released video of Mia Shem, 21, who claimed in a filmed statement that she had undergone three hours of surgery in a Gaza hospital after what her mother said appeared to be gunshot wounds.
The French-Israeli citizen had been at the Nova music festival where hundreds of revellers were murdered following an invasion of Hamas paratroopers.
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Hamas has also claimed that 20 hostages died in Israeli airstrikes but gave no details.
How Qatar brokered the US hostage release
The release of Raanan and her daughter was a diplomatic coup for the US.
But Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, looked almost sheepish when asked to elaborate on the role played by Qatar in securing their freedom. Judith and Natalie, from the suburbs of Chicago, were kidnapped by Hamas while visiting relatives at the Nahal Oz kibbutz. “I really can’t go into any details about what we’re doing, how we’re doing it,” he said. “All I can say with regard to Qatar is, in this instance, we very much appreciate their assistance.”
Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf state that hosted the men’s football World Cup last year, has become the UK and US’s key intermediary in negotiations to liberate hundreds of hostages from the Gaza Strip, up to ten of whom are believed to be British citizens. More than any other country in the Middle East, Qatar is being relied on to set its citizens free, according to government sources.
Some veteran Qatar watchers believe the country sees the negotiations as an opportunity to create further western dependency, much like buying up London property is viewed as a way of yoking the Gulf state’s security to the UK economy.
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“Acting as intermediary in hostage negotiations allows Qatar to increase its diplomatic standing and show the world it is correct in its decision to continue to engage with actors that other states may shun,” said Lina Khatib, director of the Soas Middle East Institute. “The more opportunities Qatar has to act as an intermediary ... the more it bolsters both its diplomatic and military relationship with the US and the UK.”
During their respective tours of the Middle East last week, both Rishi Sunak and President Biden met the emir of Qatar, named the most influential Muslim in the world last year. Like Sunak, an exact contemporary, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, 43, is a product of the British public school system, having been educated at Sherborne and Harrow before proceeding, like his father, to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
The emir can thank meddling British imperialists, who backed the Thani clan in the mid-19th century during a power struggle with Bahrain, for his family’s status. And Qatar, a British protectorate until 1971, has particularly close ties with the UK. Its £40 billion of British investments range from Harrods to Heathrow and from the Savoy to the Shard.
The economic relationship goes both ways: the UK relies on Qatar for 40 per cent of its liquefied natural gas, and BAE, the largest British arms manufacturer, benefits from lucrative sales of Typhoon fighter jets.
But at the same time as maintaining close ties with the US and UK, Qatar has long supported fundamentalism in the Islamic world, hosting the political offices of the Taliban and Hamas in Doha — only a few miles from the US military headquarters in the Middle East at Al Udeid air base.
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The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was a regular guest of the emir’s cousin, Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, while rumours persist that Osama bin Laden was an occasional visitor.
Now the Hamas attacks have led to renewed scrutiny of Qatar’s influence.
Until last month, Qatar was funnelling $360 million a year to Hamas, supposedly to help the authorities in Gaza pay for fuel, electricity and public sector wages but appropriated, Israel alleges, for the construction of smuggling tunnels and weapons factories.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, has lived in Doha since 2020, amassing a fortune believed to run into billions of dollars while benefiting from the luxuries of life in the most expensive city in the world. Such is the curiosity about his lifestyle, the Four Seasons was forced to clarify last week that Haniyeh is not a permanent occupant of its Doha hotel.
Qatar’s relationship with Hamas predates the group’s founding in 1987 and relates to the country’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the network of Sunni Islamist parties of which Hamas can be seen as a Palestinian offshoot.
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Money has been one element of that support, but Al Jazeera, the influential Doha-based news network, is another. “The Qataris’ means of trying to project power and influence in the Arab world, when they have no real military power, has been through ideology — backing the Muslim Brotherhood with support and money, and also with their mighty media empire promoting their cause on the airways,” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
The stories from Israel of Hamas atrocities have forced Qatar to justify the closeness of its relationship with the group — or risk jeopardising its ties to the UK and the UK. In the UK, some MPs have called for a re-evaluation of the relationship with Qatar and are demanding sanctions.
In that context, the emir’s prominent role in hostage negotiations can be seen as an attempt to manage western anger over the atrocities, experts believe. “The Qataris are not looking for outpourings of love, they’re not looking for gratitude, they’re not looking for rewards. What they’re looking for is to avoid additional criticism, which is what they’re exposed to right now given their strong history of support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Ibish.
For Qatar, the criticisms from some western quarters smack of double standards, given that the US tacitly approved, if not actively encouraged, the small peninsula, where only a tenth of the population is made up of ethnic Qataris, to pursue a close relationship with Hamas — much in the same way that Qatar was encouraged to play the role of intermediary with the Taliban.
“The Hamas political office was opened in Qatar in 2012 in co-ordination with the United States government, following a US request to open a communication channel,” a Qatari official said. “Hamas’s political office has frequently been used in key mediation efforts co-ordinated across multiple US administrations to stabilise the situation in Gaza and Israel.”
For Qatar, the hope is that its political and economic leverage over Hamas will be enough to secure the release of many more hostages — or else the West may end up questioning the value of the messenger.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, said he was seeking to negotiate a humanitarian corridor to allow hundreds of British people trapped in Gaza to leave.
Cleverly said it was still not safe to begin the evacuation but said the UK was working to establish safe routes for British citizens.
• The known British victims of Hamas in Israel
Speaking as he left the Cairo peace summit, Cleverly said the Rafah border opening was a “real, real positive”, adding: “Twenty trucks is a good start. Ultimately, we want to see more. Ultimately, we want to see the Rafah crossing safe enough that foreign nationals in Gaza are able to leave.”
He added: “We are only going to call British nationals forward when we are confident that there will be a long enough period for them to credibly, safely leave Gaza and we are not yet in that position.”
He said officials were working “very, very closely with the Egyptian government, with the Qataris and other players in the region — including Israel, of course”.
