Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ of hostage release with Doha strike – Qatar PM

Qatar’s prime minister has said Israeli leader Benjamin 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.

“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 ahead of 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’ last remaining stronghold is aimed taking over the largest Palestinian city that was 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 Middle East and beyond. It also marked a dramatic escalation in the region 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 later on Thursday, part of a diplomatic push by Qatar after the strike, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was set to visit Doha to underscore Pakistan’s support for Qatar’s security and sovereignty.

Qatar also said it was organising an Arab-Islamic summit next week in Doha to discuss the attack.

Hamas said on Tuesday that its top leaders survived the strike but that 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 Mr al-Hayya’s office.

Hamas, which has sometimes only confirmed the assassination of its leaders months later, offered no immediate proof that Mr al-Hayya and other senior figures had survived.

Qatar and Egypt have been key mediators to try to 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 Mr Netanyahu, whose government has engaged in wars across the region since Hamas’ October 7 2023 assault on Israel.

However, Mr 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,” Mr Netanyahu said. “Because if you don’t, we will.”

In what appeared to be the first move by a Gulf Arab state over the strike, the United Arab Emirates blocked Israeli firms from participating in the Dubai Air Show in November, Israeli media reported.

The Israeli Defence Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday that it had received “the notification from the exhibition organisers to the industries”.

An estimated one million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s overall population — live in the area of north Gaza around Gaza City, according to the Israeli military and the United Nations. On Wednesday, dozens of vehicles, motorbikes and donkey carts loaded with belongings lined the city’s coastal road as they tried to leave.

Amal Sobh, displaced from Beit Lahia with 30 relatives — including 13 orphans — said the three-wheel vehicle carrying their belongings broke down and they had no fuel, leaving the family stranded.

After one of her boys came down with a fever, the only food they were able to get was bread that a passer-by gave to them.

“I have 13 orphans. The one who is in my lap, his temperature is high like fire,” she told The Associated Press. “I don’t have money to buy medicine for him.”

Meanwhile in Muwasi, an area at the southern end of the strip where Israel has encouraged people to move, displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza struggled to find shelter due to overcrowding and lack of adequate resources. Many have been forced to live on the streets.

Atwah Awad said aid has not reached her or her family.

“I slept in the street tonight. Who would accept that I sleep in the street? No water, no food, no bathrooms.”

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in 2023, abducting 251 people and killing some 1,200, mostly civilians. Forty-eight hostages are still held inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.