Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the abolition of Hamas leaders based in Qatar, which Israel has been successful in a rare air strike on the American ally this week, would eliminate the key barrier to conclude the Gaza War.
But the forum of own hostages and the missing families of Israel said that the attack was another example of Netanyahu sabotating potential peace agreements.
Israel has targeted Hamas leaders in Doha through air strikes that have been sentenced by American Qatar, which was one of the places for cease-fire talks.
The leaders had gathered in Doha to discuss a new ceasefire proposal advanced by the administration of American president Donald Trump.
Read: Trump meets Qatari PMs a few days after the Israeli strike in Doha
Hamas said five of its members, including a son of his chief of Gaza in exile, Khalil Al-Hayya, were killed in the attack, but his senior leaders and his members of his negotiation team survived. Qatar said that a member of his internal security forces had also been killed.
“The terrorist leaders of Hamas living in Qatar do not care about the inhabitants of Gaza. They blocked all the attempts to ceasefire in order to constantly drag the war,” said Netanyahu in an article on X.
For the main Israeli group campaigning for the release of hostages held in Gaza, however, Netanyahu’s decision to launch an attack on the Leadership and negotiation team of Hamas showed that it was the Prime Minister himself who proved the greatest obstacle to the release of captives.
Find out more: Israeli Strike: Shehbaz to attend Doha Summit
“The targeted operation in Qatar has proven to be out of any doubt that there is an obstacle to the return of … hostages and the end of the war: Prime Minister Netanyahu. Each time an agreement is approaching, Netanyahu sabotated it,” the Otages and missing family forum said in a statement after the Prime Minister accused Hamas leaders of derailing.
Hamas has described Doha’s attack as an Israel attempt to derail the cease-fire negotiations, and said that it would not change the group’s conditions to end the war in Gaza.
Israel demanded free Hamas from all the remaining hostages held in Gaza and disarm. Hamas says that it will not release all the hostages without agreement which would end the war and do not give up its weapons until the Palestinians have an independent state.
The War of Israel against Gaza
Since October 2023, Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 62,686 people and injured 157,951, said the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the enclave.
The last deaths increase the total number of aid seekers who have been killed by Israeli fires since the creation of the GHF supported by the United States and Israel at the end of May at 2,095, with more than 15,431 injured.
Last November, the International Criminal Court published arrest mandates against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Yoav Gallant Minister of Defense for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for his war against the enclave. The proposed agreement includes a break in hostilities, increased humanitarian aid and negotiations on the release of captives.
Israel began accelerating his attack on Gaza City at the end of last month, saying that he was aiming to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas from his attack on October 7, 2023, the most bloody of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for several decades.
