Israel recalls its negotiating team from Qatar after Hamas rejected its offer

A building in Tel- Aviv is covered with photos of Israeli hostages who have been released or are still being held in Gaza, on Mar. 26, 2024 Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images. Israel has called its negotiations team back from Qatar after 10 days of talks over a possible hostage deal reached a dead-end, sparking a blame game between the U.S. and Israel. The fallout over the deadlock adds to already tense relations between Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Biden administration.

Israel on Tuesday recalled its negotiating team from Qatar after Hamas rejected its latest offer in talks on a hostage deal and truce, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.

The delegation had been in Doha for eight days.

However, several news outlets reported that a small Mossad team remained in Qatar to continue talks. The Prime Minister’s Office would not comment on the reports. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters that negotiations on a truce in Gaza were still ongoing, without providing details.

In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas’s decision to reject a US-brokered compromise is “clear proof it is not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN Security Council resolution,” referring to a call for a ceasefire passed Monday night that the US did not veto, thus enabling its passage.

The PMO accused Hamas of retreating to its “extreme demands,” including a complete end to the war and full IDF withdrawal from Gaza which Netanyahu described as illusional .

“Israel will not cave to Hamas’s delusional demands,” Netanyahu said.

A diplomatic official quoted by Hebrew-language media said Hamas demanded that Gazans be given carte blanche to return to their homes in the north of the Strip and did not even address a hostage release.

“There is no one to talk to on the other side and the Israeli negotiating team has nothing to do in Qatar,” the source was quoted as saying.

Hamas said on Monday night that it had informed mediators that it will stick to its original position on demanding a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a return of displaced Palestinians, and a “real” exchange of “prisoners” — demands Israel has repeatedly rejected as delusional.

While Hamas has conditioned any further hostage releases on an Israeli commitment to end the war, Israel has insisted that its military campaign to destroy Hamas’s military and governance capabilities will resume once any hostage-truce deal is implemented.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a radio interview Tuesday morning that the US decision to withhold a veto on the Security Council resolution would hurt Israel in talks to free its hostages.

Katz drew a direct line between Hamas’s rejection of Israeli terms for a truce and hostage deal in exchange for prisoners and the US decision to allow the Security Council resolution to pass, which he called “a moral and ethical mistake.”

“Hamas is building on the fact that… there will be a ceasefire without it needing to pay a thing,” he said.

Katz said Israel will now need to up the military pressure to prove its commitment to releasing the hostages and taking down Hamas.

“In our view, there was a message, a no-good message, to anyone on Hamas’s side that the US does not support Israel as much, and so we need to prove, militarily, that we will stand by our goals,” he said.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that the US decision gave Hamas reason to believe “they’re going to get a ceasefire without giving up the hostages.”

Saying the war is in “the home stretch,” Dermer implored the US to “stand with us, let us finish the job, and let’s get to a day after where we can have a real peace process that can give hope not only to Israelis, but also to Palestinians.”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is shown in his meeting with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon on March 26, 2024 . He told him “The Gaza Toll is ‘Too High’. Over 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children were killed in Gaza by IDF since October 7, 2023, according to Gaza Health Authorities

The Security Council resolution demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. The US abstained, and the 14 other council members voted for the resolution, backed by Russia and China, that called for a ceasefire without conditioning it on the release of hostages.

Hamas released this photo of a hostage who died as famine reached the hostages too

As a result of the UN vote Netanyahu canceled a planned trip to Washington by Dermer and National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi to discuss plans for an offensive in the Gaza city of Rafah, a step the US viewed as an overreaction.

The White House suggested on Monday that Netanyahu was trying to manufacture a crisis in US-Israel ties after he canceled the delegation’s visit.

American frustrations with Netanyahu

Last week Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York and highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S. called Netanyahu a “major obstacle to peace” and said he “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel.”

Schumer, who has long supported Israel, also called on its government to hold a new election, saying many Israelis have lost confidence in their government and it was “the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision making process about the future of Israel. 

Biden praises speech as “good”

“I’m not going to elaborate on the speech,” President Biden told reporters. “He made a good speech, and I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans.” 

Trump blames Israel for antisemitism

Former President Donald Trump appeared to blame Israel for antisemitism, saying Israel made a “big mistake” in its response to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and is “losing a lot of support” from around the world.

“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters in Addis Ababa where he was attending an African Union summit on Sunday and compared Israeli war on Gaza with the Holocaust

“I wanted to call [Israel] and say don’t do it. These photos and shots. I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza,” Trump reportedly continued. “And I said, Oh, that’s a terrible portrait. It’s a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this … every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. It would say it was given by the Defense Ministry, and said whoever’s providing that, that’s a bad image.”

News Agencies