Israelis MPs drafting bill to oust Qatar as mediator in ceasefire negotiations

Members of Israel’s governing coalition are advancing a bill to oust Qatar as the central mediator in the ongoing ceasefire negoations with Hamas.

The new law would ban mediation by any states accused of funding terrorism.

Passage of the legislation in its current form would, according to Channel 13, remove Qatar from its position in the middle of the indirect talks.

Any deal to end the Gaza War would require a mediator as both Israel and Hamas maintain a policy of no direct negotiation with the other.

But some members of the Israeli Knesset remain adamant that Qatar should not fulfill this role.

The bill was submitted by MKs Moshe Saada (Likud), Michal Woldiger (Religious Zionism) and Yitzhak Kroizer (Otzma Yehudit).

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is expected to decide on Sunday whether the government will back the legislation.

The bill’s overall goal is to fight against countries that funded or supported terrorist activities against Israel.

Negotiations between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization have been taking place for months via mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

Reports in recent weeks claimed that a breakthrough was reached and a deal might be cemented before President Joe Biden leaves office on January 20.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed optimism on Monday regarding a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

“If we don’t finalise it within the next two weeks, I’m confident it will be completed eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. When it does, it will be based on the plan President Biden proposed,” Blinken told reporters in Seoul.

But Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz piled on the pressure today, ordering the IDF to prepare for a “complete defeat of Hamas” if no agreement is reached by the end of President Biden’s term.

President-elect Donald Trump also publicly warned Hamas that “there will be hell to pay” unless the remaining hostages are freed by the time he is sworn in.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump continued. “They better let the hostages come back soon.”

The negotiations currently focus  on the prospect of a 60-day ceasefire and the release of up to 30 hostages, according to what mediators told The Wall Street Journal.

Israel would set free Palestinian prisoners (including some accused of terror offences) and allow more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza in exchange, they added.

However, Hamas wants bodies of dead hostages to be included in the 30 freed Israelis, to which Israel objected. And Israel has refused to release some of those prisoners sought by Hamas, which insists the ceasefire include a framework for a long-term truce.

It is not known how many of the hostages are alive.

On Wednesday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office denied Arab media reports on the framework of a supposed emerging ceasefire deal.

“The report in the Arab media about a pause of a number of weeks in the war in exchange for a list of hostages’ names is absolutely false and an additional part of the psychological warfare that Hamas is trying to use on the hostages’ families and the citizens of Israel,” the PMO stated, adding that “the State of Israel will continue to work relentlessly, around the clock, to bring all of our hostages back home.”