Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily.
Speaker 2: This is the Dailios. Oh now it makes sense. Good
Speaker 2: morning and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Thursday, the
Speaker 2: eleventh of September. I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Sam Kauzlowski. For
Speaker 2: the first time, Israel has struck Qatar. Israeli PM Benjamin Ntnia,
Speaker 2: who said the strike on the capital city Doha was
Speaker 2: targeting Hamas leadership. Hamas has said none of its leaders
Speaker 2: or ceasepy and negotiating team were killed, but six others were.
Speaker 2: In today's episode, we'll explain the significance of the strike
Speaker 2: and Qatar's relationship in the region. But first a quick
Speaker 2: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Lussi. I'm sure that our listeners could already tell just
Speaker 1: how much context there is here to unpack. We've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time over the past two years at least,
Speaker 1: trying to put together the pieces of context in explaining
Speaker 1: events happening in the Middle East. Yeah, for brevity and
Speaker 1: for the best chance of understanding the key dynamics here,
Speaker 1: why don't we start with the strike itself? So what
Speaker 1: do we know about this strike that Israel launched in Qatar?
Speaker 2: So this was the first known strike by Israel on Qatar.
Speaker 2: Israeli fighter planes struck a building in Doha, the capital,
Speaker 2: on Tuesday afternoon local time. Hamas said the strike targeted
Speaker 2: members of its ceasefire negotiations team, but that they survived.
Speaker 2: The group said Israel had killed six people, five of
Speaker 2: whom were associated with the group, including the son of
Speaker 2: its chief negotiator and then Israeli PM Benjamin Natnya, who
Speaker 2: posted soon after the strike saying Israel took quote full
Speaker 2: responsibility for the strike. I think to make it clear
Speaker 2: that this wasn't something that he had the US's help.
Speaker 1: With, got it. And so in that statement from Netna
Speaker 1: who did he give justification for why this strike took place?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said it was quote fully justified because of
Speaker 2: the seven October attack by Hamas on Israel and by
Speaker 2: a shooting in Jerusalem earlier.
Speaker 1: In the week, and so to kind of bring all
Speaker 1: of that together, this strike on the negotiating team for
Speaker 1: Hamas in the country of Katar was fully justified, in
Speaker 1: Menaohu's words, because of the original seventh of October attack.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the catalyst most recently is this shooting in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about that shooting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so those were both his kind of stated reasons, right,
Speaker 2: And that shooting happened in Jerusalem earlier this week, to
Speaker 2: gunman opened fire at a bus stop, killing six people.
Speaker 2: They were reportedly shot dead by Israeli security forces at
Speaker 2: the scene, and a third person was later arrested. The
Speaker 2: shooting was at Ramot Junction, which is a major intersection
Speaker 2: in an area that the International Court of Justice actually
Speaker 2: considers illegally occupied by Israel. Hummas initially didn't take responsibility
Speaker 2: for that shooting, but then overnight they announced, actually we
Speaker 2: were responsible, that's what they said.
Speaker 1: So this shooting happens in Israel, the second deadliest shooting
Speaker 1: in Israel since October seven. It elicits a big response
Speaker 1: from the government. But on Kamas, we know that it's
Speaker 1: governed Gaza since the two thousands, This isn't new. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why then were leaders based in Qatar? And can you
Speaker 1: go a bit deeper on the relationship between Hamas and Katar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Hamas has had an office in Katar for
Speaker 2: many years. It houses its political arm and obviously now
Speaker 2: houses the negotiators between like Hamas's negotiators with Israel. Because
Speaker 2: Qatar has been hosting and overseeing these negotiations since twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. Katari officials say this office was actually set
Speaker 2: up with the support of the US, which is Israel's
Speaker 2: closest ally and the aim of this was to set
Speaker 2: up in direct lines of communication. This is actually a
Speaker 2: very common thing that governments do. Governments will communicate with
Speaker 2: each other or communicate with other groups in sort of
Speaker 2: a roundabout or in direct way, because even if a
Speaker 2: group or a country is in opposition to you, you
Speaker 2: might still have reasons to talk to them. It's any
Speaker 2: number of.
Speaker 1: Well you might meet to in some situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that idea of kind of having a country
Speaker 1: with established frameworks for you to sit down at this
Speaker 1: almost middle ground or neutral territory is valuable for governments
Speaker 1: all over the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or to relay messages. So there's another example that
Speaker 2: I can give, which is that Australia has recently closed
Speaker 2: our embassy in the capital of Iran and Tehran. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that Australia is no longer talking to
Speaker 2: Iran at all. Obviously there are plenty of Iranian Australians
Speaker 2: who have ties there. And then the government also like
Speaker 2: we can talk through other Western nations that still have
Speaker 2: embassies there, because we might still have reasons to talk
Speaker 2: to them. So this is just a very standard practice
Speaker 2: that even if it's a regime or a group that
Speaker 2: you might have prescribed as a terrorist organization, you might
Speaker 2: still have to talk to them. So there's got to
Speaker 2: be a way for that to happen. The other thing
Speaker 2: I should touch on is that Qatar has given a
Speaker 2: lot of funding to Gaza since that office was set
Speaker 2: up in twenty twelve, and I mean a lot of money.
Speaker 2: I'm talking like more than a billion US dollars. A
Speaker 2: lot of that has gone to the government in Gaza,
Speaker 2: which is run by Hamas as we know, and a
Speaker 2: lot of international media outlets, and I truly mean international,
Speaker 2: I mean international news wires, US media and Israeli media
Speaker 2: all say Israel's government approved of and facilitated this funding
Speaker 2: arrangement until October twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: And I think what you're painting is is very complex
Speaker 1: picture where there's no real benefit in US trying to
Speaker 1: frame this as a simple you know, SIDEAVERS, side B,
Speaker 1: with side C in the middle. It is multi layered
Speaker 1: and intertwined a bit like a very complicated diplomatic spider web.
Speaker 1: So then explain to me the relationship then, so we
Speaker 1: understand the relationship between Hamas and Katar, now what's the
Speaker 1: relationship between Israel and Qatar.
Speaker 2: So I've been talking before about indirect relationships, and this
Speaker 2: is another one of those kind of relationships that's characterized
Speaker 2: by indirect communication, often in the sense of Qatar's role
Speaker 2: as mediators between Hamas and Israel. The groundwork for this role,
Speaker 2: like the reason why Qatar kind of has taken on
Speaker 2: this role as an international mediator is that was kind
Speaker 2: of laid back in the nineteen nineties when Qatar pledged
Speaker 2: its support for the nineteen ninety three Oslo Accords, which
Speaker 2: were an early attempt at Arab Israeli peace at the time.
Speaker 2: This was significant because in backing calls for there to
Speaker 2: be a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, Qatar was
Speaker 2: recognizing legally that the state of Israel.
Speaker 1: Exists, one of the first Arab nations to do that.
Speaker 1: So always been kind of a I like to think
Speaker 1: about Qatar almost as a bit of a calm head
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood that can be a bit chaotic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So then in nineteen ninety six, Qatar and Israel
Speaker 2: normalzed the third legal term their relationship, which basically means
Speaker 2: they set up diplomatic and economic ties. You might see
Speaker 2: that word coming up again in future as more countries
Speaker 2: kind of normalize relations with the new government of Syria,
Speaker 2: for example. That is something that I expect to see
Speaker 2: in coming months. In the ensuing years, there's been a
Speaker 2: lot of ebbs and flows in terms of how strong
Speaker 2: that relationship is. The nature of that relationship sometimes it's
Speaker 2: been very public, sometimes it's been driven by kind of
Speaker 2: indirect dealings, really depends on the situation. The end result
Speaker 2: of this is that Qatar has been hosting negotiations between
Speaker 2: Israel and Hamas since Hamas's attack on Israel, and I
Speaker 2: mean really since the beginning. So for example, you might
Speaker 2: remember the deal for a four day pause in November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. That's when hostages taken by Hamas, primarily
Speaker 2: women and children, were released in exchange for Palestinians held
Speaker 2: in jails in Israel, also initially largely and children. And
Speaker 2: just as a sort of side note, just for clarification's sake,
Speaker 2: Israeli human rights group Betzalem has found Israeli authorities have
Speaker 2: over the years detained thousands of Palestinians indefinitely in Israeli
Speaker 2: jails without laying charges or without holding a trial. So
Speaker 2: that's what we're talking about when we say prisoners.
Speaker 1: And so Qatar's role in all of that, even in
Speaker 1: those early days were talking a fortnite after that initial
Speaker 1: attack by Hamas in Israel, was to be the host
Speaker 1: and the facilitator of these talks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That had direct impacts like hostages and people who'd
Speaker 2: been held in prisons getting set free.
Speaker 1: And so when you consider the fact that there are
Speaker 1: still believed to be at least twenty hostages still held
Speaker 1: by Hamas in Gaza that are alive, Yeah, that are alive,
Speaker 1: about forty three I think still in possession of the group,
Speaker 1: you can understand why Katar continues to play a role
Speaker 1: because these negotiations are ongoing, yeah.
Speaker 2: And they have borne some fruit. So that's why kind
Speaker 2: of two years in Qatar is still a really important
Speaker 2: part of that negotiation, regardless of what stage it's at.
Speaker 1: And so these negotiations have been ongoing in Qatar. There's
Speaker 1: now been a strike that Israel says it was targeting
Speaker 1: the team of negotiators from Hamas. We don't know exactly
Speaker 1: who was killed and where in Doha, But what will
Speaker 1: happen to the talks then, because I imagine it's going
Speaker 1: to be hard to kind of pick up and keep
Speaker 1: going at least in the same location.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean the talks had essentially stalled. The
Speaker 2: latest update was over the weekend, US President Donald Trump
Speaker 2: saying Israel had accepted the terms of a ceasefire and
Speaker 2: hostage release deal, telling Hamas it was its last warning
Speaker 2: to accept. Hamas said it was discussing ideas about the deal.
Speaker 2: In terms of kind of the intractable nature of these negotiations.
Speaker 2: Hamas is seeking a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Speaker 2: Israel is seeking Hamas giving up its weapons and releasing
Speaker 2: all the remaining hostages. It's hard to see a world
Speaker 2: location wise where Katar continues hosting these talks. Obviously, there
Speaker 2: was this Israeli strike that was targeting Hamas, but it
Speaker 2: still had the impact of literally landing on Katari territory.
Speaker 2: And you and I were discussing this morning, who would
Speaker 2: volunteer to be a part of this. Egypt and the
Speaker 2: US have been involved in negotiations of those two. The
Speaker 2: US is part of NATO, the international military block, which
Speaker 2: binds its members to go to war on each other's
Speaker 2: behalf if they're attacked. I mean, this is hypothetically. It
Speaker 2: seems very unlikely that Israel would strike its closest to ally,
Speaker 2: even if it were targeting Hamas. But I think that
Speaker 2: would probably rule out the US, just because of that
Speaker 2: kind of binding obligation. Sure, but then again, as I said,
Speaker 2: who would volunteer for the possibility of, after two years
Speaker 2: of negotiations that you could be fired upon. There's also
Speaker 2: the possibility that ceasefire negotiations would continue in a location
Speaker 2: without Hamas present, But that would effectively make them illegitimate.
Speaker 1: Which is kind of the conversations that we've been having
Speaker 1: in the context of Russia and Ukraine. This idea of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump discussing a ceasefire with Putin without Zelenski there
Speaker 1: representing Ukraine kind of delegitimizes the hopes of a genuine ceasefire.
Speaker 1: That sort of lenses now being applied here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then separately talking to Zelensky without Putin, got it,
Speaker 2: and then stepping away and being like, Okay, you guys
Speaker 2: choose a location and then that's been impossible.
Speaker 1: And so the necessity of a third party I think
Speaker 1: is pretty widely agreed upon from all sides. Ye. What
Speaker 1: I've taken away from this story that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: work through is trying to understand the nature of a
Speaker 1: group in Gaza being controlled from outside the territory and
Speaker 1: how that's all been set up. Is I think that
Speaker 1: that hasn't been a topic that we've discussed a lot
Speaker 1: in the two years since, and it's been really brought
Speaker 1: into the spotlight with this labor strike.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that is a really complex one, Lucy and
Speaker 1: I feel like we've been saying this for a couple
Speaker 1: of years now, but we are going to need to
Speaker 1: kind of understand what happened next. YEA, come back in
Speaker 1: here and talk our audience through it. So thank you
Speaker 1: everybody at home and listening on your way to work
Speaker 1: or at any point in your day for joining us.
Speaker 1: We're going to be back this evening with your headlines.
Speaker 1: Until then, have a good day.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 2: Bungelung Kalkadin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
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Speaker 2: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
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Speaker 2: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.