How tiny Qatar became the middle man in negotiations to free hostages held by Hamas

WASHINGTON – A tiny Persian Gulf nation with an abundance of natural gas reserves and a desire for prestige on the world stage has become a pivotal player in the fate of hostages held by Hamas.

Qatar has taken on the role of intermediary in negotiations aiming to secure the release of more than 200 hostages captured by Hamas in its attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Four already have been freed. The Israeli military rescued another earlier this week.

Qatari mediators also helped broker a deal that has allowed for limited evacuations of foreign passport holders and some critically injured people from the Gaza Strip, which Israel has been pummeling with air strikes since the Hamas attack last month.

More than 1,000 people, including more than 100 Americans, already have left the embattled area through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza as a result of the agreement. Other departures are expected.

How did Qatar, a wealthy Arab state that’s just a speck on maps of the Middle East, find itself thrust in the middle of international diplomacy?

“Qatar is the only government that has sufficient capability and is looked upon favorably enough by both Hamas and Israel to be willing to engage with them on things like humanitarian issues,” said Jonathan Panikoff, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs with the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank based on Washington.

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'An essential party' to hostage talks

Qatari officials have been holding talks with Hamas, Israeli and U.S. officials about the fate of the hostages. David Barnea, who heads Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, has reportedly been in Qatar as part of the discussions. Mediators for Qatar have been shuttling between Mossad's Barnea and Hamas leaders to try to secure the hostages’ release.

“Qatar has lines of communication with Hamas that almost nobody else has,” said John Kirby, the White House’s spokesman for national security issues.

Israel has no formal diplomatic relations with Qatar but has acknowledged its role in the hostage negotiations.

“Qatar is becoming an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions,” Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s national security chief, wrote on Oct. 25 on X, formerly Twitter. “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time,” he said.

It’s not the first time Qatar has played the role of international mediator.

Qatar helped negotiate the release earlier this year of four Ukrainian children held by Russia, which allowed them to return to their families. A close ally of the U.S., Qatar helped secure the release in 2014 of an American journalist, Peter Theo Curt, who had been held in Syria for two years.

Qatar also was instrumental in evacuating refugees from Afghanistan two years ago, when the U.S. withdrew its military forces from the country after the Taliban returned to power following a two-decadelong war. Qatar hosted peace talks between Afghan government negotiators and Taliban representatives. The Taliban still has an office in Qatar.

More recently, Qatar played a key role in an agreement between the U.S. and Iran that led to the release in September of five Americans imprisoned in Iran. Iran had accused the Americans of being spies or working on behalf of the U.S. government.

To facilitate the exchange, Qatar agreed to allow $6 billion in Iranian assets frozen in South Korea to be transferred to Doha and for Iran to request access to them for the purchase of humanitarian goods. After the Hamas attack, however, Qatar and the U.S. decided that Iran would not be allowed to access the funds for now.

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Qatar's ties to Hamas questioned

Qatar’s role in the Gaza hostage discussions has raised some questions because of its ties to Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.

Hamas has maintained a political office in Doha, Qatar’s capital, for more than a decade. Qatar also serves as the home of Hamas’ senior leaders in exile, including Khalid Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh.

The U.S. sanctioned Mashaal in 2003 for being responsible “supervising assassination operations, bombings and the killing of Israeli settlers.” Washington sanctioned Haniyeh in 2018, saying he had “close links with Hamas’ military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians.”

For years, Qatar also has subsidized the salaries of public employees, including teachers and doctors, in Gaza as part of an informal cease-fire brokered by Egypt. Gaza has been under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Some estimates put those transfers from Qatar to Hamas at $1.5 billion over the past decade.

“The significant majority, potentially the vast majority, of those funds ended up in the bank accounts of Hamas, its employees, or its operatives,” said Asher Fredman, director for Israel at the Abraham Accords Peace Institute.

The objective of the funds transfers was to provide “just enough money that tensions in Gaza would simmer below the surface but not boil over,” Panikoff said. “They thought it was working.”

The events of Oct. 7 showed it wasn’t, he said.

On that day, Hamas militants staged their surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, kidnapping more than 200 hostages and touching off a war that the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 9,000 Palestinians.

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A quest for prestige on the world stage

With its role in the hostage talks, Qatar is seeking to boost its image on the world stage, said Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy.

“Qatar wants to be a player at the same height as the Saudis or Egypt,” Riedel said. “Of course, it never will because it’s a tiny little country with very few citizens.”

Qatar, which sits on a peninsula that juts out into the Persian Gulf, has a population of just 2.7 million, but most of its residents are expatriates. Just 300,000 are Qatari citizens.

One of the world’s richest nations, Qatar’s gas reserves are the third largest in the world after Russia and Iran. It’s also home to Al Jazeera, a state-owned satellite television network with a global audience in more than 150 countries.

Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is just 43, is eager to be seen as a world leader along the ranks of King Abdullah II of Jordan, Riedel said.

For him and the Qatari officials involved in the hostage talks, “the prestige is about the only thing they are looking for,” Riedel said. “They’ve already got more money than anybody could ever spend. So what else are they looking for in life?”

Michael Collis covers the White House. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @mcollinsNEWS.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Qatar is playing a vital role in fate of Hamas' hostages amid war