2024-01-27T19:36:42+00:00
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/ Today, Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his attack on the State of Qatar, in a new comment on the audio leak attributed to him several days ago, in which he criticized the Gulf state, which has close relations with the Hamas movement, and described it as “problematic.”
Reuters said that Netanyahu intensified pressure on Qatar to release the hostages held in Gaza, saying that Doha should use its influence with the Hamas movement as its host and financier, as he described it.
Netanyahu told reporters, “I do not retract my words,” in response to a question about his unannounced comments in which he stated that he did not want to thank Qatar for its mediation and that he considered it “problematic.”
Those comments were leaked to Israeli television this week in audio recording form.
In a leaked recording of a meeting with hostage families broadcast by Israeli Channel 12 news, Netanyahu described Qatar as “problematic.”
He said, “You did not see me thanking Qatar, did you notice? I did not thank Qatar. Why? Because Qatar, for me, is not fundamentally different from the United Nations, from the Red Cross, but in some ways it is more problematic. However, I am ready to deal with any “A mediator can now help me bring them (the hostages) home.”
At the time, Qatar expressed its strong condemnation of the statements attributed to Netanyahu, as Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari wrote on the X platform, “We strongly denounce the statements attributed to the Israeli Prime Minister in various media reports about the Qatari mediation.”
He continued, “If the circulating statements turn out to be true, the Israeli Prime Minister will obstruct and undermine mediation efforts, for narrow political reasons instead of prioritizing saving lives, including Israeli hostages.”
Last November, Qatar helped reach a seven-day truce during which 110 Israelis and foreigners who were detained in Gaza were released in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians who were detained by Israel.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States are currently trying to mediate a new truce in Gaza, which will be longer than the previous one and allow the release of Palestinian hostages and detainees and the entry of more humanitarian aid to civilians.