Qatar, which has collaborated with both Iran and Hamas to build Gaza’s terrorist infrastructure, has condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, labeling him as “irresponsible and destructive,” The Financial Times reported on Thursday. The Gulf state asserts that the leaked comments from the Israeli PM criticizing Qatar pose a threat to ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Qatar was reacting to a News12 report on Netanyahu’s meeting with relatives of the Israeli hostages, where he said Qatar was a “problematic” go-between and urged the families to increase international pressure on Hamas’s only remaining friend.
“You don’t hear me thanking Qatar, have you noticed? I don’t thank Qatar,” Netanyahu told the hostages’ families. “Why? Because for me, Qatar is essentially no different from the UN, it is essentially no different from the Red Cross, and in a way, it is even […] more problematic.” Netanyahu said.
He added, “But I’m ready to use any actor right now that helps me bring [the hostages] home. I have no illusions about them.”
Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said the comments “would only be obstructing and undermining the mediation process, for reasons that appear to serve his political career instead of prioritizing saving innocent lives, including Israeli hostages.”
On Wednesday, Ansari tweeted: “These remarks if validated, are irresponsible and destructive to the efforts to save innocent lives, but are not surprising.”
Qatar hosts the Hamas political leadership, who famously stay in five-star hotels in the capital Doha, while two million Gaza Arabs are crowded in Rafah, unable to emigrate voluntarily to the West via Egypt.
