US vice-president’s trip comes a day after two Trump envoys met Netanyahu The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has explored the immediate challenges Qatar faces in this piece detailing the Gulf state’s centrality to ceasefire negotiations. Here is an extract: It will be expected to use its experience mediating with Hamas going back as far as the George W Bush administration to persuade the Islamist militant group to disarm. That will require detailed and laborious work, including over the nature of the weapons, the future of the vast tunnel network under Gaza and the body to which Hamas fighters could decommission its weapons. Qatari money may be needed, and senior Hamas figures may be offered exile. Second, Qatar may switch its attention to the PA, the Fatah-controlled government body’s promises of reforms and the elections for a new leadership in a year. Qatar may also not want to be drawn again into the ad hoc arrangement, encouraged previously by Netanyahu, that resulted in the Gulf state funnelling $4bn (£3bn) of aid into Gaza’s infrastructure and the territory’s poorest families from 2012. Continue reading...