DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Qatar’s prime minister said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “killed any hope” of releasing hostages still held in the Gaza Strip after Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.
The comments from Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, ahead of appearing at the United Nations on Thursday, underscored the wider anger among Gulf Arab countries over 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 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 (Tuesday), he just killed any hope for those hostages.”
His remarks came as thousands of Palestinians continued 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 are aimed at 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 , which intensified further this week following the strike on Qatar.
Qatar’s diplomatic push
The attack on the territory of a U.S. ally alarmed countries in the Mideast and beyond. It also marked a 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 U.N. Security Council meeting later 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 organizing an Arab-Islamic summit next week in Doha to discuss the attack.
Hamas said Tuesday that its top leaders survived the strike but that five lower-level members were killed, including the son of Khalil al-Hayya — Hamas’ 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, whose foreign minister traveled to Doha on Thursday, have been key mediators to try and reach a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. Qatar has hosted Hamas’ political leadership for years in Doha, in part over a request by the U.S. 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’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
However, Netanyahu has continued to defend the strikes and threatened further action against Qatar a day after U.S. President Donald Trump had sought to ease tensions between the U.S. 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 harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice,” 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 Defense Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday that it had received “the notification from the exhibition organizers to the industries.”
The air show’s organizers and authorities in the Emirates did not respond to requests for comment. However, the move would carry significant diplomatic importance, particularly as the UAE only diplomatically recognized Israel five years ago.
Displaced Palestinians forced to live on the streets
An estimated 1 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 passerby gave to them. She didn’t have money to buy medicine.
“I have 13 orphans. The one who is in my lap, his temperature is high like fire,” she told The Associated Press.
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.”
More than 64,700 Palestinians killed in the war
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. The ministry does not say how many were civilians or combatants but says women and children make up around half the dead.
14-year-old boy shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank
A 14-year-old boy was in a hospital’s intensive care unit in Jenin on Thursday after Israeli troops shot him in the West Bank the day before, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent and the hospital’s director.
Oday Nasrallah was shot in the abdomen, which caused damage to internal organs and required two surgeries, according to hospital director Dr. Wissam Bakr. Nasrallah was in stable condition Thursday, Bakr said.
Nasrallah was the third 14-year-old boy shot by Israeli troops in the last week, according to reports from the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent. The other two boys died from their wounds.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the deaths. Its troops have been operating in Jenin for months, as they press forward with a major operation there and in refugee camps across the north of the territory they say is to root out militancy.
The operation has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and demolished hundreds of buildings across the northern West Bank.
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Hana reported from Wadi Gaza, Gaza Strip, and Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
