Hamas delegation leaves Qatar for Turkey after Gaza ceasefire talks breakdown

The Hamas negotiating delegation left the Qatari capital, Doha, on Tuesday, heading to Turkey to discuss the “latest developments” after the ceasefire talks with Israel had broken down, a Hamas official told AFP.

“A high-level leadership delegation from Hamas, headed by Mohammed Darwish, president of the movement’s leadership council, and including the negotiation team and its head, Khalil Al-Hayya, is departing Doha heading to Istanbul,” the source told AFP.

Qatari along with other mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas delegations in a bid to conclude a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement, nearly 22 months after the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

US President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Hamas “does not want an agreement” while his envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, announced the talks failure on Thursday, casting doubt on Hamas’s intentions.

On Friday, Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the latest negotiations addressed the details of the Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. 

Other Hamas officials said they were surprised by the US statements, stressing that the negotiations were making progress.

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