Qatar's Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said on Wednesday that there had been no conversations or engagement with any parties for the last three to four weeks to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.
"On the prospects of the negotiation ... basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties," he told reporters at the conclusion of a summit between the EU and GCC in Brussels, as quoted by Reuters.
Sheikh Mohammed, who also serves as Qatar’s Foreign Minister, has led mediation efforts for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The negotiations have been stalled as Hamas has continuously rejected every proposal for a ceasefire and hostage release deal that has been presented to it.
Last month, the terrorist group once again said that its negotiators reiterated the group’s readiness to implement an "immediate" ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous US proposal without new conditions from any party.
Despite Hamas’ refusal to accept the proposals, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month downplayed pessimism over the prospects of a hostage release deal, saying that the US will present a new proposal for a deal “very soon”.
“On the ceasefire, here’s what I can tell you: More than 90 percent of the issues have been agreed, decided. So we’re down to a handful of issues – not even a handful of issues – that are hard but fully resolvable, in our judgment. And as we’ve said before, when you get down to the last 10 percent, the last 10 meters, those are, almost by definition, the hardest ground to cover. But we believe that these are fully resolvable,” Blinken said at the time.
“Right now, we’re working intensely with our Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to work together to bridge any remaining gaps. And in the coming time, very soon, we’ll put that before the parties and we’ll see what they say,” he added.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Sukkot in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)