Sheikh Tamim noted that Israel was violating “all religious, moral and humanitarian standards and values” in Palestine.

Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani stressed that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza during his opening speech at the 44th Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha on Tuesday.

“All of this is carried out under the pretext of self-defence, even though self-defence is inapplicable to the occupation under international law, yet this does not sanction the genocide crimes committed by Israel,” Sheikh Tamim told the summit.

The Qatari leader’s bold statements came during the annual high-profile regional gathering, which took place amid the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza that has persisted for almost two months without a ceasefire in sight. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the attendees at the meeting.

Addressing the leaders in attendance, Sheikh Tamim underlined the fact that “the conflict in Palestine” was an issue of settler colonialism. 

“The conflict in Palestine is not a religious struggle, nor is it a matter of terrorism or war on terror[…]it is an issue of settler colonialism that refuses to integrate into the region through reaching a compromise and relatively just solution with the indigenous population,” Sheikh Tamim said.

Sheikh Tamim further noted that Israel was violating “all religious, moral and humanitarian standards and values” in Palestine “through the crimes against humanity committed by the occupation forces”.

“It is disgraceful for the international community to allow this heinous crime to go on for nearly two months,  during a  systematic and deliberate killing of innocent defenceless civilians,” Sheikh Tamim said.

The Qatari leader also stressed that “entire families have been erased from the civil registry” in Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces while targeting “an already fragile infrastructure”.

Israel has been committing the atrocities in Gaza under the pretext of “self-defence” following the Hamas operation on October 7.

Known as “Al Aqsa Flood”, the operation saw the Al-Qassam Brigades—Hamas’ armed wing- infiltrate the occupied territories through air, land and sea while returning to Gaza with at least 240 captives. 

Qatar has since played a pivotal mediating role that eventually led to a week-long truce in Gaza from November 24 until December 1.

The pause saw the release of at least 110 captives from Hamas in Gaza in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons, according to a Doha News tally.

“We continue to work on extending or renewing [the truce] to alleviate the burden on our kinfolk in the Gaza  Strip, but pauses cannot replace a comprehensive ceasefire,” Sheikh Tamim said.

The Qatari leader further reiterated his condemnation “of all forms of targeting civilians regardless of their nationalities, citizenships and religions” while calling on the United Nations to conduct an international investigation into the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people.

Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza on October 7, the occupation forces have killed at least 15,899 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Euro-Med had reported a higher death toll at 21,022, including 8,312 children, though it has not been updated since Friday.

The figure is expected to be much higher since the collapse of Gaza’s health sector had disabled the tracking of the death toll after the ground invasion of Al-Shifa Hospital on November 18.

Sheikh Tamim said the tragedies on the ground in Gaza “could have been spared if Israel and its supporters had come to realise the fact that the cause of the Palestinian people cannot be marginalised.

“The age of colonialism has come to an end, security is unattainable without lasting peace, and that both security and peace are unachievable without a just solution to this cause,” he said.