Qatari PM Calls for Retribution Against Israel Following Unprecedented Attack on Doha

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Qatar has called on the global community to abandon “double standards” and hold Israel responsible following a strike on Doha last week. Arab and Islamic leaders are convening in Doha to advocate for unity and increased pressure on Israel’s actions. According to a spokesperson from Qatar’s foreign ministry, the meeting will deliberate on a “draft resolution” addressing Israel’s attack.

“What is encouraging Israel to continue … is the silence, the inability of the international community to hold it accountable.”

Among the leaders expected at Monday’s summit are Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Doha on Sunday.

Qatar’s prime minister has prompted the international community to discard “double standards” and hold Israel accountable. He made these remarks on the eve of an emergency summit convened in response to an unprecedented Israeli strike on Hamas members in Doha last week. The deadly attack last Tuesday — executed by one United States ally on the territory of another — drew widespread criticism, including a rebuke from US President Donald Trump, who nevertheless dispatched his secretary of state Marco Rubio to Israel as a gesture of support. Trump’s comments on Monday (AEST) were more muted as tensions between two of the US’ most influential Middle Eastern allies intensify.

A group of men seated at a table. There is a podium next to them with a microphone.

“Qatar has been a very great ally. Israel and everyone else, we have to be careful. When we attack people we have to be careful,” Trump told reporters. Israel’s strike on Qatar’s capital resulted in the deaths of five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer. The emergency meeting of Arab and Islamic leaders on Monday will mark a strong show of unity among Gulf countries and aims to exert more pressure on Israel, which is already confronted with growing calls to end the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

‘Rein in Israel’

According to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, Monday’s meeting will consider “a draft resolution on the Israeli attack on the State of Qatar”.

Elham Fakhro, a fellow of Harvard’s Middle East Initiative, said she expected Gulf states to “use the summit to call on Washington to rein in Israel”.

“The time has come for the international community to stop using double standards and to punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed,” stated Qatari Premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at a preparatory meeting on Sunday, emphasizing that Israel’s “war of extermination” in Gaza would not be successful. It remains unclear whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, will attend the gathering, although he visited Qatar earlier this week as a gesture of regional solidarity.

Middle East lecturer Karim Bitar, of Paris’s Sciences Po University, called the gathering a “litmus test” for Arab and Muslim leaders, saying many of their constituents were “sick and tired of the old-style communiques”.

Qatar is organizing an emergency summit in reaction to Israel’s recent attack on Doha, purportedly aimed at Hamas leaders. “They will also seek stronger US security guarantees, on the basis that Israel’s actions reveal the inadequacy of current assurances and have weakened US credibility as a security partner,” the statement noted. “What they are expecting today is that these countries … send a significant message not only to Israel but also to the United States that the time has come for the international community to stop granting Israel an unchecked authority,” he said.

What have Israel and the United Nations said about the strike?

Israel said that it had targeted Hamas leaders in Doha in the strike, which was condemned by the UN Security Council in a statement agreed to by all 15 of its council members, including longtime Israel ally the United States.

Although the statement did not explicitly name Israel, it indicated that the Security Council “underscored the importance of de-escalation and expressed their solidarity with Qatar,” and that its members also “affirmed their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.”

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the region, and plays a key mediation role in the Israel-Hamas war, alongside the United States and Egypt.

Sheikh Mohammed had dinner on Friday with Trump while visiting the United States.

Hamas political member Bassem Naim said the group, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, hoped the summit would produce “a decisive and unified Arab-Islamic position”, as well as “clear and specific measures” on Israel and the war.