The man at the centre of negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire has told Sky News Donald Trump wants a deal done before he takes power in January.
Speaking exclusively to Sky’s The World with Yalda Hakim, the prime minister of Qatar expressed cautious optimism but said it required “maximum pressure” on all parties to end the fighting.
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani said Mr Trump’s advisers and the incoming administration have said they want the situation resolved by his 20 January inauguration.
“We are trying to coordinate with them our efforts, and all of us, we agree, and we are hoping to get over this situation before the president comes to the office,” he said.
The prime minister said the Trump team “want this to be resolved now – today even”.
Mr al Thani also defended Hamas being allowed to continue operating its political office from Doha, Qatar’s capital.
He stressed it was set up “with full transparency and coordination, and at the request of the US and Israel at that time to have this as to be used as a negotiation platform”.
He said multiple ceasefires had been brokered through the office since 2014.
“There are tons of situations where we have prevented an escalation from the beginning in order not to put ourselves in a situation like what we ended up with on 7 October,” he said.
The prime minister added: “There will be always be criticism, a lot of parties who will not like this kind of policy, yes, but it’s needed.”
Image: A man and child on the site of an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, on 4 December. Pic Reuters
Image: A building hit by an Israeli strike in Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza, on 28 November. Pic: Reuters
Negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire have so far proved unsuccessful, with more than 44,500 Palestinians killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas after the group killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages in its October 2023 terror attack.
About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza – but at least a third are believed to be dead.
On Monday, Donald Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released before he re-enters the White House.
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” he wrote on his Truth Social site.
Speaking about what Mr Trump’s re-election means for the Middle East – including relations with Iran – the Qatari prime minister said there were “a lot of risks” but “plenty of opportunities”.
“I hope that everyone sees these opportunities,” he added.
The Gulf state’s prime minister told Sky News the trip was a “celebration” of long-standing links between Britain and Qatar – and that it was especially welcome as loyalty was “in short supply in the world”.
He also addressed criticism of Qatar’s human rights record, with some urging Sir Keir Starmer to raise the issue during the visit.
Campaigners have frequently accused it of abuses against migrant workers, curtailing freedom of expression, and discrimination against women and LGBTQ people.
Mr al Thani said the wealthy Gulf state was doing its best to address issues.
“It’s unfortunate sometimes when we see all this criticism in human rights or so-called human rights records in Qatar,” he said.
“We are not saying that we are a perfect nation or a perfect country, but we are a country that when we see there is something wrong, we acknowledge the facts that these are wrong things, and we are trying to do our best according to our systems and our customs, to modify it and to reform it.”
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office later on Monday, Mr Trump said he does have a red line on when he’ll stop pushing Moscow and Kyiv for peace – but would not say what it is.
There are “big egos involved”, he said before adding: “This was a European situation, it should have remained a European situation.”
The US president also claimed he asked Mr Putin on their call: “When are we going to end this bloodbath?”
He said of the Russian president: “I do believe he wants to end [the war].”
“My whole life is deals, one big deal, and if I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn’t even be talking about it because I’d just pull out,” he added.
The US president spoke to his Russian counterpart on Monday as part of a bid to push the two countries towards agreeing a truce in the war.
Image: Donald Trump speaking in the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: AP
In a Truth Social post, published shortly after the call, Mr Trump said Russia and Ukraine “will immediately start negotiations towards a ceasefire and, more importantly, an end to the war”.
Mr Trump continued: “Russia wants to do large-scale trade with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is unlimited.”
Image: Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Moscow last week. Pic: AP
Ukraine “can be a great beneficiary on trade, in the process of rebuilding its country”, he said.
The Vatican “has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations”, Mr Trump added. He signed off his post with: “Let the process begin!”
A Russia-Ukraine ceasefire is the one deal Trump can’t seem to seal
For the war that Donald Trump said he’d solve in a day, read the war he couldn’t solve at all.
By posting on Truth Social that an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be negotiated between the two parties, the US president puts distance between himself and the deal he couldn’t seal.
The United States appears to be taking a step back from its stewardship of negotiations, as it leaves both sides to it.
The broker broken? For Trump, certainly, this has been a most intractable negotiation that he has never looked like closing.
He mentions “ceasefire” in his social media post only as a discussion for Russia and Ukraine, not as the call he made for an unconditional cessation of hostilities.
There’s no mention of the frustrations he once threatened at intensive Russian bombing, or of the sanctions he once threatened against Moscow.
Far from it, he speaks of “large-scale trade with the United States when this bloodbath is over”.
He adds that Ukraine can be a trade beneficiary from the country’s rebuilding.
In Kyiv and allied European capitals, they were looking for strong-armed support from Washington.
European leaders had called Trump the day before he spoke to Putin to discuss sanctions and to reinforce their need for US support in steering the Russian leader towards serious engagement.
They will be making further calls to the White House to clarify where they stand now, for fear they stand alone.
Ukraine was never a pet project of Donald Trump.
In his ambitions to reshape the world order, restored relations with Russia has always been a prize as he eyes China as adversary-in-chief.
In the bigger picture, Ukraine has always been a small feature. It shows.
Mr Putin found the call “informative, frank and very useful”, Russian news agency RIA reported.
“A ceasefire in the situation in Ukraine for a certain period of time is possible if appropriate agreements are reached,” the Russian leader reportedly said.
Discussions are ‘positive,’ says Zelenskyy
The US president spoke separately to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various European leaders.
At a briefing after the day’s calls had taken place, Ukraine’s leader said he told Mr Trump that Russia “might propose some particularly difficult conditions” for a ceasefire – which could be “a sign that it is the Russian side that is unwilling to end the war”.
Image: Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to reporters after his own call with Mr Trump. Pic: Reuters
“I think we are still discussing the very possibility of strong and severe sanctions [on Russia],” he continued. “I don’t yet have an answer to that question.”
Kyiv is considering the possibility of a meeting between “high-level” teams from Ukraine, the US, Russia and some European countries, Mr Zelenskyy said, describing the talks on Monday as “positive”.
He continued: “Such a meeting could take place in Turkey, the Vatican, or Switzerland. We are currently considering these three venues, as all three countries – all three venues – are neutral.”
European leaders and Ukraine have demanded Russia agree to a ceasefire immediately, and Mr Trump has focused on getting Mr Putin to commit to a 30-day truce. The Russian president has resisted that, insisting that conditions be met first.
The Trump-Putin call came as Russia has continued to target Ukraine with attacks.
Moscow on Monday claimed its forces have taken two villages in Ukraine, according to state news agency RIA.
Russia recently began pushing into the Sumy region after claiming it had ousted Kyiv’s forces from Russia’s neighbouring Kursk region.
RIA cited the defence ministry as saying Novoolenivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, and Marine, in Sumy, have now been taken by Russian forces.
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4:33
Russia launches war’s largest drone attack
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 112 drones over various parts of the country overnight, killing two people and leaving another 13 injured.
On Sunday, Kyiv officials said Russia had launched the largest drone attack of the war so far by firing 273 explosives into Ukraine over the course of Saturday night into the following morning.
Israel has said it will allow a “basic quantity of food” into the besieged enclave of Gaza to avoid a “starvation crisis” following a near three-month blockade.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was “based on the operational need to enable the expansion of the military operation to defeat Hamas“.
Gaza, where local authorities say more than 53,000 people have died in Israel’s 19-month campaign, has been under a complete blockade on humanitarian aid since 2 March.
It comes as global food security experts warn of famine across the territory and after a UN-backed reportfrom last Monday which warned one in five people in Gazawere facing starvation.
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3:14
Israel ramps up bombing in Gaza
The statement from the prime minister’s office said it would “allow a basic quantity of food to be brought in for the population in order to make certain that no starvation crisis develops in the Gaza Strip”.
“Such a crisis would endanger the continuation of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ to defeat Hamas,” it added.
“Israel will act to deny Hamas’s ability to take control of the distribution of humanitarian assistance in order to ensure that the assistance does not reach the Hamas terrorists.”
More on Gaza
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3:20
Gaza is ‘a slaughterhouse’ says surgeon
It comes after a British surgeon working in Gaza said in a video to Sky News the enclave is now “a slaughterhouse” amid Israeli bombardment.
Israel has just ramped up its offensive in Gaza–where it’s been conducting a military campaign in retaliation for 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023 – with Palestinian health officials reporting at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed troops had begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.
In a statement on Sunday, IDF said its air force struck “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations” over the past week.
Israel has launched an escalation to increase pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
Pro-Western candidate Nicusor Dan has unexpectedly beaten hard-right populist George Simion in the Romanian presidential election.
Mr Simion,38, and his rival – a centrist who’s mayor of Bucharest – faced off in the second round of the contest.
According to the official tally, Mr Dan was leading by nearly nine percentage points with more than 98% of the votes counted.
Image: Pic: Reuters
Image: Mr Dan and his supporters celebrated the exit polls. Pic: Reuters
After exit polls suggested he wasn’t going to win, Trump-supporting Mr Simion rejected the result and said estimates put him 400,000 votes ahead.
Speaking after voting ended, Mr Simion said his election was “clear” as he posted on Facebook: “I won!!! I am the new President of Romania and I am giving back the power to the Romanians!”
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2:52
George Simion on Trump, the EU – and his message to UK
Romania’s last election was annulled after its highest court ruled the leading candidate, nationalist Calin Georgescu, should be disqualified due to claims of electoral interference by Russia.
The result is surprising because in the first round, 38-year-old Mr Simion, founder of the right-wingAlliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), took 40.96% of the vote – almost 20 points ahead.
Image: George Simion rejected the polls but official counting saw him slip behind. Pic: Reuters
Image: Supporters of Mr Dan celebrated on the streets of the capital Bucharest. Pic: AP
An opinion poll on Friday had it much closer, but still suggested the two men were virtually tied.
Mr Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, is running as an independent and has pledged to clamp down on corruption.
He is also staunchly pro-EU and NATO, and has said Romania’ssupport for Ukraine is vital for its own security.
When voting closed at 9pm local time, 11.6 million people – about 64% of eligible voters – had cast ballots. About 1.64 million Romanians living abroad also took part.
Image: About 11.6 million people – 64% of eligible voters – cast ballots. Pic: AP
The election is being closely watched across Europe amid a rise of support for President Donald Trump.
After polls closed, Mr Dan said “elections are not about politicians” but about communities and that in the latest vote “a community of Romanians has won, a community that wants a profound change in Romania”.
“When Romania goes through difficult times, let us remember the strength of this Romanian society,” he said.
“There is also a community that lost today’s elections. A community that is rightly outraged by the way politics has been conducted in Romania up to now.”