Qatari Prime Minister Calls for Action Against Israel Following Strike on Doha

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Key Points

Qatar has urged the world to reject “double standards” and hold Israel to account after a strike on Doha last week.
Arab and Islamic leaders are meeting in Doha, calling for unity and greater pressure on Israel’s actions.
The meeting will consider a “draft resolution” on Israel’s attack, according to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson.

Qatar’s prime minister has urged the international community to reject “double standards” and hold Israel accountable. He was speaking on the eve of an emergency summit called in response to an unprecedented Israeli strike on Hamas members in Doha last week.

The deadly attack last Tuesday — carried out by one United States ally on the territory of another — sparked a wave of criticism, including a rebuke from US President Donald Trump, who nonetheless dispatched his secretary of state Marco Rubio to Israel in a show of support.

Trump made more subdued remarks on Monday (AEST), as two of the US’ most powerful Middle Eastern allies face a worsening rift.

“Qatar has been a very great ally. Israel and everyone else, we have to be careful. When we attack people we have to be careful,” Trump told reporters.

Israel’s strike on Qatar’s capital killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer.

Monday’s emergency gathering of Arab and Islamic leaders will serve as a pointed show of unity among Gulf countries and seek to put more pressure on Israel, which is already facing mounting calls to bring an end to the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“The time has come for the international community to stop using double standards and to punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed,” Qatari Premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told a preparatory meeting on Sunday, adding Israel’s “war of extermination” in Gaza would not succeed.

“What is encouraging Israel to continue … is the silence, the inability of the international community to hold it accountable.”

Among the leaders expected at Monday’s summit are Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Doha on Sunday.

It remains to be seen whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, will attend the gathering, though he visited Qatar earlier this week in a show of neighbourly solidarity.

A group of men seated at a table. There is a podium next to them with a microphone.

Qatari is holding an emergency summit in response to Israel’s recent attack on Doha, which it said was targeting Hamas leaders. Source: AAP / Turkish Foreign Minister Press Office

‘Rein in Israel’

According to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, Monday’s meeting will consider “a draft resolution on the Israeli attack on the State of Qatar”.

Elham Fakhro, a fellow of Harvard’s Middle East Initiative, said she expected Gulf states to “use the summit to call on Washington to rein in Israel”.

“They will also seek stronger US security guarantees, on the basis that Israel’s actions expose the inadequacy of current assurances and have undermined US credibility as a security partner.”

Middle East lecturer Karim Bitar, of Paris’s Sciences Po University, called the gathering a “litmus test” for Arab and Muslim leaders, saying many of their constituents were “sick and tired of the old-style communiques”.

“What they are expecting today is that these countries … send a very important signal not only to Israel but also to the United States that time has come for the international community to stop giving this blank cheque to Israel,” he said.

What have Israel and the United Nations said about the strike?

Israel said that it had targeted Hamas leaders in Doha in the strike, which was condemned by the UN Security Council in a statement agreed to by all 15 of its council members, including longtime Israel ally the United States.

The statement did not explicitly name Israel, but said the Security Council “underscored the importance of de-escalation and expressed their solidarity with Qatar”, and that its members also “underlined their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar”.

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the region, and plays a key mediation role in the Israel-Hamas war, alongside the United States and Egypt.

Sheikh Mohammed had dinner on Friday with Trump while visiting the United States.

Hamas political member Bassem Naim said the group, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, hoped the summit would produce “a decisive and unified Arab-Islamic position”, as well as “clear and specific measures” on Israel and the war.