Qatar’s prime minister has said that Benjamin Netanyahu “killed any hope” for the remaining hostages in Gaza following Israel’s extraordinary strike on Hamas negotiators in Doha on Tuesday.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani called the deadly strike in the Qatari capital an act of “state terror”. Israel’s attack the previous day killed six members of Hamas who were negotiating a ceasefire deal brokered by the US and other Gulf countries.
“He needs to be brought to justice,” al-Thani said of the Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu has responded defiantly to international criticism for the attack, including a White House statement that the “unilateral bombing” inside Qatar “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”
In a video statement, Netanyahu accused Qatar of harbouring terrorists and suggested he reserved the right to continue attacks in the future. “I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice,” he said. “Because if you don’t, we will.”
Al-Thani accused Netanyahu of “wasting” Qatar’s time in hosting negotiations between Israel and Hamas and said his country would reassess “everything” about its role as mediator in the conflict.
“I was meeting one of the hostages families the morning of the attack,” al-Thani 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.
Other Israeli officials have also responded defiantly to public criticism over the strike, amid doubt over whether the missiles fired by Israeli air force planes had killed any of their primary targets.
On Wednesday, the country’s defence minister, Israel Katz, warned its “long arm will act against its enemies anywhere”.
“There is no place where they can hide,” Katz wrote on X, adding: “Everyone who took part in the October 7 massacre will be held fully accountable. Anyone who carries out terror against Israel will be harmed.”
The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told Fox News that if the strike had not killed Hamas leaders, it would succeed “next time”.
Qatar, a close US ally, has been hosting negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Gaza war, and plays a key role as an intermediary. The Hamas leaders were reported to have been meeting to discuss a new ceasefire proposal put forward by the US president, Donald Trump.
In a social media post, Trump insisted he played no role in the attack. “This was a decision made by prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” he wrote on his Truth Social network. He said his administration had tried to warn Qatar of the attack but was “unfortunately, too late”.
Hamas said in a statement that all of its leaders were safe, but five lower-ranked members were reportedly killed. A senior Israeli official admitted on Wednesday that optimism about the success of the strikes was waning.
Qatar said one of its security forces was killed in the attack and accused Israel of “state terrorism”.
Israel deployed its air power again on Wednesday, with a strike in Yemen. Almasirah TV, which is run by the Houthi militia movement that rules much of the country, reported that the defence ministry in the capital, Sana’a, had been hit. Israeli Army Radio said Houthi headquarters and military camps were among the targets.
Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, condemned the attack in Qatar, saying Israel violated Qatar’s sovereignty and did “nothing to secure the peace that the UK and so many of our allies are committed to”.
Russia and China also condemned the attack, while regional rulers headed to Qatar in a show of solidarity.
In Israel, the attacks prompted celebrations but also anxiety among families of the hostages held in Gaza, who said they were fearful for the fate of their loved ones after 23 months of conflict.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack into Israel in October 2023 during which militants killed 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducted 250. Of those, 48 hostages remain in Gaza, but fewer than half are thought to be alive.
The Israeli offensive that followed has so far killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, injured more than 150,000 and reduced much of Gaza to ruins.
“Why does the prime minister insist on blowing up every small chance for a deal? Why? The people of Israel are tired of this war. End it already and bring everyone back,” said Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was kidnapped from his kibbutz.
Q&A
Why is it so difficult to report on Gaza?
Show
Coverage of the war in Gaza is constrained by Israeli attacks on Palestinian journalists and a bar on international reporters entering the Gaza Strip to report independently on the war.
Israel has not allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza since 7 October 2023, unless they are under Israeli military escort. Reporters who join these trips have no control over where they go, and other restrictions include a bar on speaking to Palestinians in Gaza.
Palestinian journalists and media workers inside Gaza have paid a heavy price for their work reporting on the war, with over 180 killed since the conflict began.
The committee to protect journalists has determined that at least 19 of them “were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders”.
Foreign reporters based in Israel filed a legal petition seeking access to Gaza, but it was rejected by the supreme court on security grounds. Private lobbying by diplomats and public appeals by prominent journalists and media outlets have been ignored by the Israeli government.
To ensure accurate reporting from Gaza given these restrictions, the Guardian works with trusted journalists on the ground; our visual teams verify photo and videos from third parties; and we use clearly sourced data from organisations that have a track record of providing accurate information in Gaza during past conflicts, or during other conflicts or humanitarian crises.
Emma Graham-Harrison, chief Middle East correspondent
Successive polls have shown broad support in Israel for a deal to end the war and free the hostages, while Netanyahu has been accused of prolonging the conflict for political ends.
Qatar has hosted several rounds of indirect Israel-Hamas talks in Doha and helped broker two short-lived truces, with the US and Egypt as fellow mediators.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, called it a “strike right at the heart of regional mediation” – and one that Washington failed to prevent. “It shows that Trump is unable to actually enforce the policy that he is setting, which was one built around mediation,” he said.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but today controls only parts, on Saturday once again said that it would release all hostages if Israel agreed to end the war and withdraw its forces from Gaza.
Netanyahu is pushing for a comprehensive deal that would see all of the hostages released at once, Hamas disarming and militant leaders exiled.
Amos Nadan, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said Tuesday’s strike could have been intended to be a similar move to last year’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia and Hamas ally Hezbollah, which was followed by an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire two months later.
“In Israel … the vast majority of the people now are in favour of ending the war and bringing back the hostages … So that might look like the concluding remarks of the war,” Nadan said.
Meanwhile in Sana’a, people said Wednesday’s attack had struck a hideout between two mountains that was used as a command-and-control headquarters. The extent of any damage was not immediately clear.
In late August, an Israeli strike on Yemen killed the Houthi prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi.
The Houthis, who are supported by Iran, have attacked vessels in the Red Sea in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and have fired missiles towards Israel, most of which have been intercepted.
