NEWSRAEL: The Qataris are trying to placate the Trump administration. Time will tell if this will be enough.
The Sky News Arabia news channel reported on December 2 that Hamas leaders, who had been in Qatar since 2012, had left it with their families and moved to other countries. Israeli security sources confirmed the report, saying that some had moved to Malaysia, Turkey, Algeria and possibly Pakistan.
On November 19, Qatar confirmed that Hamas leaders who are negotiating the hostage deal were no longer in Doha, but denied that Hamas offices in the country had been closed. Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said during a press conference in Doha that “Hamas leaders who are part of the negotiating team are not currently in Doha, and as is known, they are moving between several capitals.”
The Hamas leadership moved from Damascus to Doha, the capital of Qatar, in 2012, following a serious dispute that erupted between the then head of Hamas' political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, and Syrian President Bashar Assad, over the Syrian army's massacre of the Sunni population in Syria during the civil war, in which about half a million Muslim civilians were killed.