Following Israel’s murder of the Hamas leader, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken resumed negotiations Thursday in Qatar, a crucial mediator in the conflict in Gaza, in an effort to generate momentum for a truce.
Following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken took a plane to Saudi Arabia and then Qatar to get an idea of Hamas’s stance on a ceasefire.
According to the State Department, Blinken “discussed renewed efforts to secure the release of the hostages and end the war in Gaza” with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir of the Gulf state.
Later, he held discussions with Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, with whom he will jointly address the media.
Blinken is paying his 11th trip to the region since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, after repeated disappointments in his quest to end the Israeli retaliatory campaign in the Gaza Strip.
But less than two weeks before the US presidential election, President Joe Biden has found new hope after Israel killed Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza.
US officials had described Sinwar as intransigent in negotiations brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt on a ceasefire that would also see the release of hostages from Gaza.
Blinken said he spoke to Israel’s leaders “about the importance of determining whether Hamas is prepared to engage in moving forward, and the Egyptians, the Qataris are doing just that”.
“But I believe that with Sinwar gone, because he was the primary obstacle for realising the hostage agreement, there is a real opportunity to bring them home and to accomplish the objective,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday as he left Israel.
Critics say the issue was not just Hamas but the Biden administration’s failure to secure the support of Israel, which has received a near continuous flow of billions of dollars in US weapons.
