On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thania stated that a deal between Israel and Hamas can’t be reached when there’s a “fundamental difference between the two parties. One party wants just to retrieve the hostage[s] and continue the war and the other party wants to end the war and doesn’t think about the hostages.”
Al-Thani said [relevant remarks begin around 5:10] that he’s glad to see hostage Edan Alexander released and required “a lot of pressure” to accomplish.
He continued, “Now, we wanted this to be, also, as a first step toward having a complete hostage deal. Unfortunately, the next day, being followed by a massacre on a hospital in Gaza.”
Host Bret Baier then cut in to say, “Obviously, the Israelis, obviously, say they were going after senior Hamas leadership.”
Al-Thani responded, “Yeah, but going after [a] senior Hamas leader doesn’t mean killing 70 people just as collateral damage, which has been the justification for the last year and a half. We cannot reach a deal when we have two different — like a fundamental difference between the two parties. One party wants just to retrieve the hostage[s] and continue the war and the other party wants to end the war and doesn’t think about the hostages.”
