Commenting on the latest updates of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Qatar’s Prime Minister said Israel has been obstructing all efforts to reach a deal.
Qatar has ruled out the use of the United States’ Al-Udeid Air Base to launch “attacks on the region and beyond” amid ongoing escalations in the Middle East and a looming Israeli attack on Iran.
Speaking to Qatar TV on Tuesday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani voiced his country’s rejection of any country to wage wars or launch attacks.
“With regards to Al-Udeid’s Air Base presence in the State of Qatar, or anything in the State of Qatar, we do not accept any attacks or wars to be launched against other countries or peoples, whether in the region or beyond,” Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the country’s foreign minister, said.
The top Qatari official’s remarks were in response to a question on the U.S. ties and military backing of Israel, particularly in light of the ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
Sheikh Mohammed noted that Qatar and the U.S. have their own sovereign decisions.
“In foreign policy and international relations, the principle of separating files is the common known approach,” he explained.
Since the beginning of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Qatar took a pivotal role in mediating between Israel and Hamas in an effort to reach a ceasefire and a captives release deal.
The mediation efforts were successful last November in securing a week-long deal, under which 109 captives were released from Hamas in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were women and children.
Mediation efforts have stalled since the truce deal expired, with Israel intensifying the war on the Gaza Strip while expanding its attacks to the West Bank and in neighbouring Lebanon.
Israel also assassinated Hamas’s late political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July before assassinating Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month.
Iran had retaliated for both killings earlier this month by launching dozens of airstrikes on Israel, which has now vowed to respond to Tehran.
Commenting on the latest updates of the negotiations, Sheikh Mohammed said Israel has been obstructing all efforts to reach a deal.
“We’ve particularly witnessed obstruction lately from the Israeli side. Despite Qatar’s unwavering, clear and vocal stance with regards to its support of the people of Palestine, we try as much as we can in mediation to work fairly and transparently to reach solutions to protect the people of Palestine at the end,” he explained.
Israel has killed more than 42,000 people in the Gaza Strip just over a year while, killing at least 2,350 others in Lebanon within the same time period.
“We have a noble goal, which is to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people. What is happening in Gaza cannot be accepted by any honest person,” Sheikh Mohammed stressed.
