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The Gaza ceasefire talks were held up by “meaningless things” that meant it took more than a year to turn a framework for a truce into a deal between Israel and Hamas, mediator Qatar said on Tuesday.
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said his country felt sorry for the time wasted in negotiations. Qatari, Egyptian and US diplomats mediated the deal agreed last week to end more than a year of continued fighting in Gaza since a short-lived ceasefire in late 2023.
“Just calculating the days since the collapse of the first ceasefire that we brokered back in November 2023, it was 411 days of ups and downs,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “When we look at and reflect on what we have achieved in the last few days, we felt really sorry for all the time that we wasted in these negotiations.
“The framework that we agreed on in December [2023] is the one that's been realised a couple of days ago,” he said. “It means there was just a year of negotiating details, and honestly some meaningless things compared to the lives of the people that they have lost.”
Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar's Foreign Minister, expressed hope in Davos that “calculations will be different” in the next stage of talks. “There is still a long way to go,” he said. “It won't be an easy negotiation but I hope it will not be as difficult as what we have been through.”
Hamas freed three Israeli hostages on Sunday as part of a 42-day first phase in which thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israel are also due for release. The second phase would involve the release of all remaining hostages and the third would see the UN, Qatar and Egypt oversee rebuilding efforts.
US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden both claimed credit for getting the ceasefire deal over the line. Sheikh Mohammed said the final days of negotiations showed a “determination to find solutions” from Mr Trump's incoming foreign policy team.
He warned that the destruction in Gaza may be even worse than yet seen in the media as he predicted that “uglier images” will emerge. In satellite images “it’s something horrific when you look at it and you see this small strip that is very highly dense in population being destroyed to that level”, he said.
As Palestinians seek funds to rebuild “we cannot have an investment where we are investing in the reconstruction every time and something happens and it just gets destroyed and we do it again”, Sheikh Mohammed said. “There is now a huge requirement and huge pressure on all of us to look at sustainable solutions where we can sustain peace, where we can also give assurances and comfort to countries to understand that these investments will not go to waste.”
