Qatar’s prime minister has said Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu “killed any hope” over the release of hostages still held in the Gaza Strip after Israel attacked Hamas chiefs in Doha.
The comments from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, ahead of appearing at the United Nations on Thursday, underlined the wider anger among Gulf Arab countries over Israel’s strike that killed at least six people.
“I was meeting one of the hostages’ families the morning of the attack,” Sheikh Mohammed told CNN in an interview.
“I think that what Netanyahu has done ... he just killed any hope for those hostages.”
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Qatar has also hit back at Mr Netanyahu in a strongly worded statement early on Thursday, describing his remarks about the Gulf country’s hosting of a Hamas office as “reckless”.
The heated exchange came more than a day after Israel attempted to kill Hamas political leaders in an air strike on Qatar on Tuesday, escalating its military campaign in the Middle East and prompting a flurry of international condemnations.
On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu warned Qatar to expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will.” He also accused Qatar of providing safe haven and financing to Hamas, drawing a sharp rebuke from Doha.
Qatar’s foreign ministry condemned what it described as Mr Netanyahu’s “explicit threats of future violations of state sovereignty”.
“Netanyahu is fully aware that the hosting of the Hamas office took place within the framework of Qatar’s mediation efforts requested by the United States and Israel,” the ministry added.
“The negotiations were always held in an official and transparent manner, with international support and in the presence of US and Israeli delegations. Mr Netanyahu’s insinuation that Qatar secretly harboured the Hamas delegation is a desperate attempt to justify a crime condemned by the entire world.”
The Qatari capital will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit next Sunday and Monday to discuss the Israeli attack on Doha, according to an invitation by Qatar’s news agency.
A Hamas official said on Thursday that the attack in Qatar will not change its terms for ending the war.
“At the moment of the terrorist attack, the negotiating delegation was in the process of discussing its response to the proposal,” said Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum in a televised address.
Mr Barhoum reaffirmed Hamas’s key demands: a full ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a real prisoner-for-hostage exchange, humanitarian relief and reconstruction of the enclave.
Tuesday’s attack in Doha drew rare misgivings from the United States, where president Donald Trump’s administration has generally hewed to Israel’s hawkish line.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the relatively unscathed Al-Naser area of Gaza City were having to decide whether to stay or go on Thursday after the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning that troops would take control of the western neighbourhood.
Israel has ordered the hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City to leave as it intensifies its all-out war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but with little safety, space and food in the rest of Gaza, people face dire choices.
Israeli strikes killed 34 people across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to medics and local health authorities, including 22 in Gaza City and 12 in the central and southern parts of the territory.
The plans have drawn widespread condemnation and add to Israel’s already unprecedented global isolation, which intensified further this week following the strike on Qatar.
Israeli ground troops had operated in parts of Al-Naser at the start of the war in October 2023, and the leaflets dropped late on Wednesday left residents fearful that tanks would soon advance to occupy the entire neighbourhood.
In the past week, Israeli forces have been operating in three Gaza City neighbourhoods further east - Shejaia, Zeitoun, and Tuffah - and sent tanks briefly into Sheikh Radwan, which is adjacent to Al-Naser. —Agencies
