Benjamin Netanyahu’s airstrike on Hamas ceasefire negotiators in Doha has “just killed any hope” for the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, the prime minister of Qatar has said.
In an interview with CNN, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani said the assassination of Hamas representatives was “barbaric” and accused Israel of “state terror”.
The unprecedented bombardment killed six people, including a member of Qatar’s internal security forces and five Hamas members who were brokering a US-led ceasefire plan for Gaza.
Netanyahu was just wasting our time,” al-Thani said.
“I was meeting one of the hostage’s families the morning of the attack,” he said. “They are counting on this [ceasefire] mediation, they have no other hope for that.”
“I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages,” he added.
Doha is reeling after Israel’s first direct attack on the country which has hosted multiple rounds of ceasefire talks between the two sides over the course of the 23-month bloody war.
“We were thinking that we are dealing with civilised people,” al-Thani said. “That’s the way we are dealing with others. The action that [Netanyahu] took – I cannot describe it, but it’s a barbaric action.”As a result of the attacks, al-Thani said his administration was “reassessing everything” about hosting such talks, and had commenced “very detailed conversation” with the US government on next steps.
“I’ve been rethinking, even about the entire process for the last few weeks, that Netanyahu was just wasting our time,” al-Thani said in the interview.
“He wasn’t serious about anything,” he added, and said recent talks had been “meaningless.”
The PM’s comments come after Dr Majed al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson and an adviser to the country’s prime minister, said Netanyahu is a “narcissistic saboteur-in-chief” who is determined to wreck any chance of peace in the Middle East.
“This is not an act of a partner who believes in their partnership with the US. This is a unilateral action by a madman. This is somebody who is unhinged,” he said.
“[Netanyahu] does not have any concern for the life of the hostages, any concern for the international standing of Israel [among] the international community, or any concern for what Israel stands for as a state, as a member of the United Nations.
“ It has reached a point where he doesn’t even have respect for his partners in the US administration.”
Israel has faced international condemnation for its shock decision to bomb Qatar, including from US president Donald Trump who described the attack as “unfortunate”, and that he was “very unhappy about the way it went down”.
“This was a decision made by [Israel’s] Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” he said, and praised Qatar as a “strong ally and friend”.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the attack “does not advance Israel or America’s goals”.
British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said he condemned the strikes which he said “violate Qatar’s sovereignty and risk further escalation across the region”.
“The priority must be an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and a huge surge in aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement on X.
“This is the only solution towards long-lasting peace.”
Mr Netanyahu’s office put out a statement after the strike, which said the attack was “a wholly independent Israeli operation”.
“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility,” the statement read.
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