Qatar denounces Israel before major summit on Israel’s attack in Doha targeting Hamas leaders

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Qatar’s prime minister denounced Israel on Sunday as foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim nations met to discuss a possible unified response to Israel’s attack on Doha targeting the leadership of the militant group Hamas.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, made the comments before a meeting Monday of leaders from those nations.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar remained committed to working with Egypt and the United States to reach a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ attack on Israel nearly two years ago. However, he said that the Israeli strike that killed six people – five members of Hamas and a local Qatari security force member – represented “an attack on the principle of mediation itself.”

“This attack can only be described as state terrorism, an approach pursued by the current extremist Israeli government, which flouts international law,” the minister said. “The reckless and treacherous Israeli aggression was committed while the state of Qatar was hosting official and public negotiations, with the knowledge of the Israeli side itself, and with the aim of achieving a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Sheikh Mohammed stressed the moment had come for consequences to Israel’s attacks in the wider Middle East.

“It is time for the international community to stop applying double standards and punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed,” Sheikh Mohammed said in footage later released by Qatar’s government from the closed-door meeting.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit separately criticized Israel and warned that “silence in the face of a crime … paves the way for more crimes.”

There was no immediate response from Israel, which is hosting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this weekend.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night again defended the strike.

“The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza,” he posted on X. “They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war. Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”

Hamas official Bassem Naim said in a statement that the organization hopes that the summit on Monday will produce “a unified and decisive Arab-Islamic stance” on the war.

Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that hosted the 2022 World Cup, long has served as an intermediary in conflicts. For years, it has hosted Hamas’ political leadership at the request of the U.S., providing a channel for Israel to negotiate with the militant group that has controlled Gaza for years.

But as the Israel-Hamas war has raged on, Qatar increasingly has been criticized by hard-liners within Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu himself has vowed to strike all those who organized the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, and in the time since the attack in Qatar, he has doubled down on saying Qatar remains a possible target if Hamas leaders are there.

Netanyahu faces increasing pressure from the Israeli public over the fate of the remaining hostages held in Gaza. There are still 48 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed by Israel to still be alive. Israel’s offensives in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says around half of those killed were women and children.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.

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Sally Abou Aljoud in Beirut, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.