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Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met Iran's Foreign Minsiter Abbas Araghchi in Tehran on Monday, a day after the latest round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations failed to bear fruit.
Sheikh Mohammed landed in Iran on Monday for consultations with Iranian officials. He is scheduled to meet Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian later in the day.
Qatar has been a primary mediator on behalf of the Palestinian armed group Hamas, while Iran is not a formal party to the negotiations.
Sheikh Mohammed's visit was intended to develop and expand relations between Tehran and Doha, a statement carried by Iranian state news agency Irna said.
Iran “welcomes the efforts of Qatar to immediately stop the war [in Gaza] and the crimes committed by the Zionists against the oppressed people of Palestine, and to establish a ceasefire in Gaza,” Mr Araghchi said after the meeting.
“We support any agreement that our friends in the Palestinian resistance and Hamas accept."
Rounds of negotiations have repeatedly stalled since November, when a week-long truce was agreed and about 100 Israeli hostages were released in exchange of 210 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Qatar, home to much of Hamas’s exiled political wing, has been under immense international and US pressure to compel the Palestinian armed group into accepting a ceasefire deal.
But talks brokered by mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have ended with Israel and Hamas still at odds over issues that include the return of displaced Palestinians to Gaza and the fate of a strip on the Egypt-Gaza border – the Salah Al Din corridor – from which Israel has refused to withdraw.
Meanwhile, Hamas has maintained its demands for a full Israeli withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire.
Iran is a major ally and sponsor of Hamas, which is part of its so-called Axis of Resistance. The regional power has close ties to Hamas’s military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, which co-ordinates with other pro-Iran allies such as Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.
As truce negotiations in Cairo drew to a close on Sunday with no agreement in sight, the Lebanese Hezbollah group – an ally of both Hamas and Iran – launched a volley of hundreds of rockets into Israel as retaliation for the latter’s assassination of top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr last month.
Iran has also promised retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil late last month.
But Hezbollah’s response was contained, intentionally falling short of instigating a major response from Israel that could lead to a major war.
Still, the powerful Lebanese group timed its retaliation to coincide with the last day of ceasefire negotiations in Cairo, underlining the urgent need for a deal to prevent the Gaza war from broadening into a wider regional conflict.
Israel has effectively lost its “deterrent attack power and must now defend itself against strategic strikes”, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, hinting that the equation between Israel and Hezbollah had changed in Hezbollah’s favour.
“Fear of the present and the future is embedded in the homes of the residents,” he added in a speech carried by RNA. “Israel has lost its ability to predict the time and place of an attack and its deterrent power.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday said the attack was designed not to provoke a harsh response but to “help strengthen the position of Palestinians and Arabs in the negotiations”.
One of the primary reasons for the month-long delay in the retaliation was to allow time for the ceasefire talks to succeed. Although Hezbollah has been waging a cross-border conflict with Israel since October, when it expressed support for Hamas, the Lebanese group has consistently said it would act only as a “support front” to pressure Israel into a ceasefire.
Mr Nasrallah emphasised this when he reminded Israel that Iran’s retaliation had not yet been conducted, "all of this should lead to a ceasefire in Gaza. That is our main objective,” he said.
