The framework for a deal that could lead to a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza is being put to the Hamas leadership, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said on Monday.
Speaking after talks in Paris between officials from the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel, he said: “We are in a better place than we were a few weeks ago.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also voiced hope. “Very important, productive work has been done. And there is some real hope going forward,” he said in Washington. “Hamas will have to make its own decisions. I can just tell you that there is good, strong alignment among the countries involved that this is a good, strong proposal.”
The basis of the deal is a 45-day pause in the fighting leading to the release of 35 Israeli hostages and as many as 4,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Israel remains opposed to a permanent ceasefire and wants to retain a right to recommence hostilities against Hamas – something the Hamas leadership wants ruled out.
Late on Monday, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine reiterated that Israel must halt its offensive and withdraw from Gaza before any prisoner exchange takes place.
Sheikh Mohammed told an Atlantic Council event that progress had been made “to at least to lay a foundation for the way forward”.
He added: “We cannot say that this will make us in a better shape very soon. But we are hoping actually to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process. We think that in today’s world, that’s the only game in town now.
“We don’t know and we cannot predict what the Hamas response will be, and we are sure that we will be faced with some challenges and obstacles.”
He was not pressed on how Hamas’s insistence on a permanent ceasefire could be reconciled with Israel’s rejection of the proposal. Reference in the agreement to a pause leading to a ceasefire may not be enough for Hamas, which wants assurance that it can claim that it was not destroyed by the three-month Israeli assault.
Israeli diplomatic sources said there was a low probability of this happening. One Israeli source said: “There will be a comprehensive deal only if Hamas drops the demand for an end to the fighting.”
Earlier, a Hamas spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhr, said: “The success of the Paris meeting depends on Israel agreeing to the cessation of aggression in the Gaza Strip.”
Sheikh Mohammed, often accused of being too close to Hamas, said the attacks mounted on 7 October were “unacceptable to any human being” and insisted that most Palestinians favoured a two-state solution in which Israel’s right to exist is recognised – a position opposed by Hamas.
In a separate strand of talks, members of the Palestinian Authority were increasingly willing to agree a timetable for elections in the West Bank and Gaza, as long as the two entities were given a clear pathway to a Palestinian state.
Sheikh Mohammed urged Israel to recognise that “we cannot punish an entire population for an act of a small group”. Equally, he said, the entire aid agency UNRWA should not be demonised due to the alleged actions of a small number of its staff.
Warning about the danger of military escalation throughout the region, he said: “We are seeing that the situation is boiling up here and there and everyone, unfortunately, is dancing at the edge.”
