Super-rich, tiny Qatar was well-placed to assume the role of chief negotiator in the lead-up to the Hamas-Israel agreement for a pause in the Gaza war, a swap of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and increased humanitarian aid for Gazans.
Qatar employed its close ties to both the United States and Hamas to secure the deal despite the reluctance of Israel’s government to pause its Gaza offensive.
Since 1991, Qatar’s vast Al-Udaid air base has been home to the largest US air force deployment in the region. This has earned it US protection and contributed to Qatari regional influence. Qatar’s connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent movement, have also paid off. For a decade, Qatar has hosted top Hamas leaders, including current politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Tuned into popular Arab anti-Israel sentiments, Qatar has not normalised relations with Israel, but did receive Israeli intelligence officials during the negotiations. Gaza’s neighbour Egypt joined Qatar and the US in mediating the Gaza deal.
Qatar’s prime minister, sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, played a leading role in the negotiations.
Cairo’s involvement in the mediation effort was possible only because in 2021, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Bahrain had repaired relations with Qatar. They had boycotted and blockaded Qatar from 2017 due to its connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in those four countries.
The devastation wreaked on Gaza has made the pause urgent, as 1.7 million out of 2.3 million Gazans are homeless, without water, food and medical treatment, while Israel has come under strong domestic pressure to recover the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas.
Ties with Iran and Russia enabled Qatar to mediate a prisoner exchange between Tehran and Washington in September and the return in October of four Ukrainian children who had been taken to Russia during the Ukraine-Russia war.
Qatari mediations have not always been successful. Doha has suspended a year-long effort to convince Lebanon’s feuding politicians to elect a new president, and the 2020 deal Qatar reached between the Afghan Taliban and the Trump administration led to the chaotic US rout from Afghanistan during the successor Biden administration.
After gaining independence from Britain in 1971, Qatar’s rulers focused on consolidating their grip on power and on domestic development. After taking over in 1995, emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani pursued an active foreign policy. One of his tools was Al-Jazeera’s pan-Arab satellite television channel, which has played an influential role in regional politics since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Qatar has also relied on billions of dollars in oil and natural gas revenues, mediation and on hosting international conferences and sporting events. The emir’s son Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who succeeded in 2013, continues his father’s policies.
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