Israel, Hamas were not ready for a comprehensive peace deal, mediator says

3 hours ago 3

By Adam Rasgon

October 13, 2025 — 12.56pm

Paris: The mediators who helped reach the Gaza Strip ceasefire deal decided to delay talks on more difficult issues, such as Hamas’ arsenal, because the warring parties were not ready for a comprehensive agreement, Qatar’s prime minister said in an interview.

The prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, was one of the central mediators in efforts to end the war in Gaza, and the Qataris have maintained close contacts with Hamas’ leadership for years. He spoke to The New York Times soon after Israel and Hamas agreed to halt hostilities in Gaza and exchange all the remaining hostages in the territory for about 2000 Palestinian prisoners.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani addressing the press in Doha earlier this year.

The deal left some of the thorniest issues in the conflict for a later stage, including the future of Hamas’ weapons and how Gaza would be governed after the end of the war.

“If we went for full-package negotiations, we wouldn’t have reached these results,” Sheikh Mohammed said Friday in Paris. He spoke after a meeting there with President Emmanuel Macron of France, and Arab and European foreign ministers about post-war Gaza.

Sheikh Mohammed said Hamas had expressed a willingness to talk about a different kind of relationship with Israel.

“Hamas are actually open to have a discussion about how they won’t pose a threat for Israel,” the prime minister said.

Hamas officials, the Israeli prime minister’s office and the Israeli Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hamas has previously expressed willingness to agree to a long-term truce with Israel. In March, Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’ chief negotiator, told US officials in Qatar that the group was open to a five- to 10-year truce, in which the group would lay down its weapons.

More recently, Hamas has maintained publicly that it is opposed to disarmament. It has suggested convening a Palestinian national dialogue about the future of Gaza, including on the fate of its arms.

The war with Israel has significantly weakened Hamas, and there are splits within the group on important questions about its future direction.

Serious unresolved questions remain about what happens after the hostage release including Hamas disarmament, Israel’s withdrawal timeline and the future governance of Gaza.

Some leaders and members want Hamas to refuse to give up its weapons, even if that comes at the price of renewed war and the deaths of more Palestinians. Others say the group needs to be more pragmatic on weapons and other matters.

By giving up the remaining hostages in Gaza, Hamas traded away significant leverage with Israel with no certainty that it would achieve all its goals in return.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently said that Hamas must be disarmed before the war in Gaza can permanently end.

Hamas has long regarded that demand as tantamount to surrender and views armed struggle as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli control over Palestinian lands.

Netanyahu vowed this month that Hamas would be disarmed and Gaza would be demilitarised, either through diplomacy or by force.

“Either it will be achieved the easy way, or it will be achieved the hard way,” he said. “But it will be achieved.”

Some Arab mediators said they believe that they can persuade Hamas to partially disarm, as long as President Donald Trump guarantees Israel will not restart the war.

Sheikh Mohammed said one question that needed to be addressed was to whom Hamas would hand over its weapons. He said there was a marked difference between Hamas giving its weapons to a Palestinian authority and the group giving them to another entity.

It is still not clear when negotiations about the outstanding disputes between Israel and Hamas will begin.

Trump’s road map for ending the war in Gaza calls for the establishment of a temporary international stabilisation force. Sheikh Mohammed said the next step should be the discussion on the formation of such a force, which he views as connected to Hamas’ disarmament and further withdrawals of Israeli troops from Gaza.

As the force takes control, the Israeli military should withdraw based on agreed-upon “standards, milestones and time frames linked to demilitarisation”, the US plan says.

The stabilisation force should also train Palestinian police officers and help secure border zones, according to the plan.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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