Israel strike on Qatar ‘killed hope’ of hostage release
Jon Grambrell, Abdel Kareem Hana and Wafaa Shurafa |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “killed any hope” of releasing hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, Qatar’s prime minister says, after Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.
The comments from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, before appearing at the United Nations on Thursday, underscored the wider anger among Gulf Arab countries over Israel’s strike that killed at least six people.
“I was meeting one of the hostage’s families the morning of the attack,” Sheikh Mohammed told CNN in an interview aired late Wednesday.
“They are counting on this (ceasefire) mediation, they have no other hope for that.”
Sheikh Mohammed added: “I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages.”
His remarks came as thousands of Palestinians sought to flee Gaza City before Israel’s impending offensive there.
The numbers leaving the city have grown in recent days, though many have refused because they say they no longer have the strength or money to relocate.
The Israeli military’s plans for the next phases of its operation in what it calls Hamas’s last remaining stronghold is aimed taking over the largest Palestinian city that’s already devastated from earlier raids and experiencing famine.
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.
The attack on the territory of a US ally alarmed countries in the Mideast and beyond, and risked upending talks aimed at ending the war and freeing hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Sheikh Mohammed was expected to attend a UN Security Council meeting, part of a diplomatic push by Qatar after the strike.
Hamas said on Tuesday that its top leaders survived the strike but five lower-level members were killed, including the son of Khalil al-Hayya – Hamas’s leader for Gaza and its top negotiator – as well as three bodyguards and the head of al-Hayya’s office.
Hamas, which has sometimes only confirmed the assassination of its leaders months later, offered no immediate proof that al-Hayya and other senior figures had survived.
Qatar and Egypt have been key mediators to try and reach a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political leadership for years in Doha, in part over a request by the US to encourage negotiations between the militant group and Israel.
There was no immediate reaction to Sheikh Mohammed’s remarks from Netanyahu, whose government has engaged in wars across the region since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
However, Netanyahu has continued to defend the strikes and threatened further action against Qatar a day after US President Donald Trump had sought to ease tensions between the US allies, including by assuring the Gulf nation that there would be no more such strikes on its soil.
“I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice,” Netanyahu said. “Because if you don’t, we will.”
An estimated one million Palestinians – about half of Gaza’s overall population – live in the area of north Gaza around Gaza City.
On Wednesday, dozens of vehicles, motorbikes, and donkey carts loaded with belongings lined the city’s coastal road as they tried to leave.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1200, mostly civilians.
Forty-eight hostages are still held inside Gaza, about 20 of them believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
AP
