US pushes Israel-Qatar rapprochement with high-level meeting in NYC – report

Trump administration reportedly working to broker reconciliation between Israel and Qatar following September strike in Doha, hosting secret meeting of Mossad director and a senior Qatari official in New York.

By World Israel News Staff

The Trump administration is working to facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Qatar, according to a report over the weekend, in the hopes of repairing ties between the two countries that were damaged following Israel’s airstrike on a Hamas gathering in Doha in September.

On Sunday, Axios published a report citing two unnamed sources who claimed that the US hosted a trilateral meeting in New York on Sunday, bringing together representatives from Israel and Qatar.

The meeting was reportedly led by President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, and featured Mossad Director David Barnea, along with a senior Qatari official who was not named in the report.

The summit is the highest-level meeting between Israeli and Qatari officials since IDF jets struck a Doha villa on September 9 in an assassination attempt targeting most of Hamas’ politburo.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally apologized to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani while visiting the White House later that month – at President Trump’s behest – ties between the two countries remained strained.

According to the sources cited in Sunday’s report, the Trump administration proposed trilateral talks in order to “enhance coordination, improve communication, resolve mutual grievances, and strengthen collective efforts to prevent threats.”

Sunday’s meeting is the first in a planned series of trilateral summits organized by the US aimed at improving ties between Doha and Jerusalem.

The meetings are also expected to serve as a forum for talks on the implementation of the second phase of the Gaza peace deal.

Netanyahu has in the past said he plans to use the trilateral talks to confront Qatar over its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, its use of the state-funded Al Jazeera network to promote anti-Israel propaganda, and Doha’s involvement in fomenting anti-Israel sentiment at American colleges.