ISTANBUL

Qatar’s prime minister said Hamas has expressed openness to discussing ways it would no longer “pose a threat to Israel,” but talks on sensitive issues such as the group’s weapons were postponed because the warring sides were not ready for a comprehensive deal, according to an interview published Sunday.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as the country’s foreign minister, said mediators decided to delay negotiations on Hamas’ arsenal after helping broker the Gaza ceasefire agreement that halted the Israeli genocide, The New York Times reported.

“If we went for full-package negotiations, we wouldn’t have reached these results,” Sheikh Mohammed said Friday in Paris, following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and several Arab and European foreign ministers on postwar Gaza.

“Hamas is actually open to having a discussion about how they won’t pose a threat to Israel,” he added, without elaborating on the scope or timeline of such talks.

Hamas has long rejected disarmament, insisting instead on a Palestinian national dialogue to determine Gaza’s future, including the question of its weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza demilitarized “either through diplomacy or by force.”

“Either it will be achieved the easy way, or it will be achieved the hard way,” Netanyahu said earlier this month.

Sheikh Mohammed said one of the key issues ahead is determining to whom Hamas would surrender its weapons, noting a “marked difference” between handing them over to a reformed Palestinian Authority and transferring them to another entity.

“The (ceasefire) agreement deferred critical issues such as the future of Hamas's weapons and the post-war administration of Gaza to the next stage,” he added, saying that “Israel and Hamas were not ready for a comprehensive peace agreement. Therefore, our priority was to quickly complete the hostage exchange.”

The top Qatari diplomat added: “There are serious disagreements within Hamas regarding the future; some leaders oppose disarmament, while others advocate a more pragmatic approach.”

“Hamas has lost one of its most important leverage points against Israel by releasing its last hostages,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

US President Donald Trump announced last Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of a plan he laid out Sept. 29 to bring a ceasefire to Gaza, release all Israeli captives being held there in exchange for around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the entire Gaza Strip. The first phase of the deal came into force on Friday.

Phase two of the plan calls for the establishment of a new governing mechanism in Gaza without Hamas’ participation, the formation of a multinational force, and the disarmament of Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed over 67,600 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children, and rendered it largely uninhabitable.