Hamas attack: Qatar, Egypt, Turkey... Who could act as an intermediary?

Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP 18:03 p.m., October 12, 2023, modified at 18:07 p.m., October 12, 2023

There are at least 150 of them, according to the Israeli authorities, to which must be added hundreds of people still missing, including 18 French nationals. The hostages, captured by Hamas during its deadly raid into Israeli territory last Saturday, offer an advantage to the Palestinian Islamist movement, which could use them as human shields to limit the scope of Israel's response.

Germany recently contacted Qatar and asked the Gulf emirate to work for their release. Alongside Turkey and Egypt, Doha appears to be one of the few potential mediators in this conflict between Israel and Hamas. "This is not the first time that Qatar wants to position itself as a 'go-between', an intermediary," said David Rigoulet-Roze, an associate researcher at Iris and a specialist in the Middle East. Citing the example of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, where Doha had favoured the evacuation of at least 55,000 people.

Qatar and Turkey: a dwindling credibility?

However, the expert considers the success of the operation to be very uncertain. "Qatar's position is likely to become very uncomfortable, because Doha has been Hamas' financial sponsor for years. There is a long-standing ideological sponsorship between Qatar and Hamas. And this will pose a problem, in view of what has just happened, because it will lead to the fact that Qatar is the sponsor of a movement that has manifested a form of 'Daeshisation'," argues David Rigoulet-Roze. Qatar would then be forced to assume its proximity to a terrorist organization. This undermines some of its credibility as an intermediary.

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An embarrassment that Turkey could also encounter in a possible role of intermediary between the two belligerents. Ankara also maintains links with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which Hamas claims to support. "The leaders of Hamas have been received with the red carpet several times by Ankara," Didier Billion, deputy director of Iris, told us this week. This raises doubts about Turkey's real ability to set itself up as a mediator, argues David Rigoulet-Roze. "Turkey has already tried to act as an intermediary when it comes to Ukrainian grain. And it only worked partially," he argues. In July 2022, under the aegis of the UN and Turkey, Kiev and Moscow reached a time-limited agreement, allowing Ukraine to export its grain via three of its ports. Russia then refused to renew it.

A head start for Egypt?

This leaves a third player, perhaps the most credible of all: Egypt, the former administrator of the Gaza Strip, now in the hands of Hamas. Unlike Doha and Ankara, Cairo enjoys "the confidence of the Israelis," Rigoulet-Roze said. "There is a security partnership that is very old between the two sides," he added. Egypt can also boast of a "relatively fine supervision of what it passes on the Gaza Strip" and presents a major geographical argument. "In Rafah, there is the only crossing point to the outside. Especially in the event of a humanitarian catastrophe. This is where we could plan a humanitarian corridor and this is what is being considered today," says David Rigoulet-Roze.

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But such a scenario is causing considerable reluctance on the Egyptian side. "They don't want to see millions of Gazans flocking to their homes en masse," he said. Especially since the establishment of humanitarian corridors, whether to Egypt or Israel, raises the risk of a possible presence of Hamas cadres in the flow of population. "We remember the terrorist syndrome when jihadists melted into the flows during the migration crisis," he concludes.