This Thursday, Israel’s far-right finance minister accused Qatar, one of the main players in negotiations with the Palestinian Hamas movement, of responsibility for the attack on October 7 last year.
“Qatar is a country that supports and finances terrorism,” said Bezalel Smotrich, directly blaming Doha.
The emirate “is a sponsor of Hamas and is primarily responsible for the massacres committed by Hamas against Israeli citizens,” the leader of the Religious Zionism party, which is part of the Israeli government, also said.
“One thing is certain: Qatar will in no way be involved in what happens in the Gaza Strip after the war,” the minister added in a message published on the social network X.
Debate in Israel over how best to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas is intensifying as military operations intensify in the southern Gaza Strip.
Qatar, Egypt and the US are trying to resolve the situation to reach a new truce, allow the release of hostages still being held and provide more humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast a recording of a dialogue between the Israeli prime minister and family members of the hostages, in which Benjamin Netanyahu calls Doha’s role “problematic.”
“I have no illusions about them,” Netanyahu said in the same voice, accusing the emirate of financing the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Qatar said it was “shocked,” calling Netanyahu’s comments “irresponsible and harmful to efforts to save innocent lives.”
Doha is home to Hamas’s political leadership and has in recent years provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the people of Gaza, which has been under the movement’s control since 2007.
The ongoing war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7 last year that killed more than 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on official figures. data.
About 250 people were kidnapped, of whom one hundred were released at the end of November during a truce.
According to the same AFP data, 132 hostages are still in the territory, 28 of them have died.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a massive military operation that has killed 25,700 Palestinians, most of them women, children and teenagers, according to the movement’s Health Ministry, which controls the enclave.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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