How Qatar gambled on a Gaza truce, and won

Qatar faced criticism over its mediation between Israel and Hamas, but after more than a year of war in Gaza, the tiny emirate emerged a winner after it announced a ceasefire deal.

The joint mediation was carried out with the United States and Egypt but centred on the small, gas-rich peninsula which is home to three million people.

Qatar hosts Hamas's political office, giving it unique access to the group -- but also fuelling accusations that it supports the Palestinian militants, which Doha has always denied.

During the mediation, Qatar was hit by criticism from US and Israeli lawmakers and a shadowy influence campaign including billboards in New York's Times Square targeting the Gulf state's rulers.

But on Wednesday, two months after pausing its role as mediator, Qatar announced a six-week truce and hostage and prisoner exchange, with hopes of sealing a permanent ceasefire.

The fragile deal has yet to be approved by Israel's cabinet.

Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security specialist at King's College London, said Qatar's mediation "was always a tool of statecraft to get relevance and acceptance globally and most importantly in the United States".

Neil Quilliam, associate fellow of the Chatham House think tank's Middle East and North Africa Programme, said "Qatar is the most experienced mediator in the region and it has passed through many phases to get to where it is now".

"It has enjoyed successes and endured failures, and it has also sought to play a more muscular role in the region," he added.

Qatar hosts the biggest US military base in the Middle East but also juggles diverging relationships including with Hamas and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Quilliam said relations with the United States had also been on the line during the mediation.

"The danger (was) that the US holds Qatar responsible for the failure of the negotiations and therefore loses its value to Washington as a critical interlocutor," Quilliam told AFP.

The wealthy peninsula, bordered by oil giant Saudi Arabia, took the strategic decision to play deal-maker decades ago.

"There was a question of how we maintain our national security," foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told a graduate-school audience in Washington last February.

Over the past 30 years, Qatar has been the go-between for warring parties in Darfur, Yemen and Afghanistan, among others.

It has also secured the return of dozens of Ukrainian children who were moved to Russia and occupied territories after Russia's invasion nearly three years ago.

Success relied on doing "things that others won't... that meant talking to people in the international community's doghouse", Ansari said.

The joint Qatari, US and Egyptian mediation between Israel and Hamas enjoyed an early breakthrough with a ceasefire and hostage release in late 2023.

But frustrations grew as the talks struggled to make headway last year.

In April, Qatar said it was re-evaluating its role as mediator as the process stalled. The Gulf state had faced calls from US and Israeli politicians to exert pressure on Hamas.

- Influence campaign -

Then in November, Qatar said it had decided to suspend its participation over Hamas and Israel's lack of seriousness in negotiations.

That month, a dozen Republican US senators including Marco Rubio, now President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of state nominee, had signed a letter urging the State Department to end its policy of allowing Qatar to mediate.

Last year, disinformation researchers unearthed a global influence campaign vilifying Qatar, including an anti-Qatar ad that featured at a US gathering of political conservatives attended by Trump.

In February, an ad targeting Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of Qatar's emir who has no role in the Gaza talks, appeared in Times Square.

Researchers said dozens of pages on Meta-owned Facebook were used to host more than 900 anti-Qatar ads. Meta said the coordinated activity originated in Vietnam and targeted audiences around the world.

However, the Gaza ceasefire, which is due to start on Sunday, is a second piece of good news for Qatar after long-time Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in a lightning rebel advance last month.

Unlike other Arab countries, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Syria under Assad after his brutal crackdown on Arab Spring opposition protests in 2011.