Gaza ceasefire: How did a small Gulf monarchy become a brand in mediation?

Celebrations were widespread across Gaza last night. After 15 months, there is hope that one of the most brutal military onslaughts in modern history committed by Israel in Gaza is coming to an end.

As in November 2023, when a deal brokered the only release of hostages from Hamas captivity so far, Qatar was instrumental in getting a deal across the line. How did the small Gulf monarchy become a brand in mediation?

In a world where size does not matter, it is still remarkable that a small team of diplomats from a country of just 350,000 citizens – in addition to an expat population of more than two million – has been able to mediate another deal in the world’s most complex and protracted conflict.

For 15 months, Qatar kept its side of the bargain – exercising any possible leverage on Hamas – while the Biden administration in the US remained unwilling to use all its weight to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal.

The magnitude of the negotiations Qatari diplomats have been able to have with Hamas interlocutors only becomes clear when understanding the context of the mediation.

Israel has repeatedly killed Hamas leaders on the ground and overseas. Conferences were held, with Netanyahu government ministers in attendance, on how to recolonise the Gaza Strip. These same ministers have leaked to the media that there was no intent on Israel’s side to withdraw from Gaza.

Regardless, Qatari mediators were relentless in pressing Hamas’s surviving second guard.

A three-phase deal to return the hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October 2023, in exchange for thousands of often arbitrarily arrested Palestinians, has been on the table for a year. Hamas’s seal of approval was mostly extracted by Qatar in the summer of 2024.

What changed was Qatar’s ability to invoke its close rapport with Steve Witkoff – the designated Middle East envoy of the incoming US president, Donald Trump – to twist Netanyahu’s arm to accept a deal. Qatar’s bet on the Trump factor paid off.

Guiding principle

Mediation is part of the Gulf state’s strategic thinking.  The national myth of being the “Kaaba al-madiyoum” – the Kaaba of the dispossessed – is a guiding principle in Qatari statecraft.

Qatar has been eager to invite to the negotiating table those whose positions are usually not heard. Compromise and win-win games have become a deep-seated element of Qatar’s strategic culture, rooted in the peninsula’s historic tribal feuds.

This leads to a degree of strategic pragmatism that allows Qataris to leave their own politics outside the negotiation room.

For more than a decade, Qatari mediators sat with the Taliban to hammer out a deal for Afghanistan, ignoring fundamental differences in worldview that for Qatari diplomats were more than alienating. In the same way, Qatari negotiators left their strong feelings about Israel’s injustices against the Palestinian people to one side when meeting Israeli representatives.

Anchored in Qatar’s constitution, mediation is the main pillar of statecraft for the small, hydrocarbon-rich monarchy in an insecure environment. It provides Doha with relevance, importance and prestige in the international system.

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