Why is the Hamas leader buried in Qatar?

According to Didier Billion, deputy director of IRIS, Doha, which has positioned itself as a negotiator in the war in Gaza, intends to send a message to all parties.

Hamas calls for a ““day of anger”Hundreds of worshipers gathered on Friday, August 2, at a large mosque in Doha, Qatar, to pray in memory of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated on Wednesday in Tehran.

The Hamas political leader is to be buried in a cemetery in Lusail, north of Doha, after the brief prayer that brought together hundreds of people in the Imam Mohammad bin Abdul Wahab mosque, the largest in the Qatari capital. The man was living in self-imposed exile in Qatar, where he was able to play a key role in indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement for a truce in the war in the Gaza Strip.

Ismail Haniyeh chose to leave the Gaza Strip in 2019 to settle in Qatar, an ally that has hosted Hamas’ political bureau since 2012. It is also one of the few countries in the Middle East capable of leading negotiations between Israel and Hamas with a view to a ceasefire. But according to Didier Billion, deputy director of Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), these already laborious talks are jeopardized by the assassination of the man who was considered the diplomatic face of Hamas: “Ismail Haniyeh was one of those who could be contacted directly since he was in Qatar, Iran or Turkey, where he was easily reachable. You can imagine that to contact the leaders of Hamas, who are still in the Gaza Strip, this requires tricks and a whole series of intermediary agents who make the thing very complicated,” specifies Didier Billion.

By burying Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, in Doha, Qatar wants to send a message, believes the researcher.

“As a kind of symbolic mark of the fact that Qatar is not abandoning Hamas. Not that they agree with all of Hamas’ initiatives, but because they consider that first of all, a political solution is needed and that for a political solution.”

Didier Billion

to franceinfo

And the specialist clarified: “We need negotiators. And for there to be negotiations, we need mediations embodied, therefore, among others by Qatar and a few others, like Egypt.” However, as soon as the death of the political leader of Hamas was announced on Wednesday, Qatar questioned the advisability of continuing its mediation between the two parties.