3 hours ago
Last Updated:May 04, 2025, 09:10 IST
Netanyahu said Qatar needed to "stop playing both sides" over negotiations for a truce in the Palestinian territory with Hamas. Qatar rejected the "inflammatory" remarks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (IMAGE: AFP FILE)
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said Gaza mediator Qatar needed to “stop playing both sides" over negotiations for a truce in the Palestinian territory with Hamas.
“The time has come for Qatar to stop playing both sides with its double talk and decide if it’s on the side of civilisation or if it’s on the side of Hamas barbarism," Netanyahu wrote on X, adding: “Israel will win this just war with just means."
The time has come for Qatar to stop playing both sides with its double talk and decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas barbarism. Israel will win this just war with just means.— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 3, 2025
Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, brokered the truce alongside the US and Egypt that came into effect in January. Efforts to secure a new deal, however, have appeared to stall in recent weeks.
The Israeli prime minister, under pressure from his far-right supporters, without whom he would lose his governing coalition, has been increasingly vocal in his calls to continue the war since the restart of the Gaza offensive.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari rejected the “inflammatory" comments, charging that they “fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility" in a statement on X.
The State of Qatar firmly rejects the inflammatory statements issued by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, which fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility. Portraying the ongoing aggression against Gaza as a defense of “civilization"…— د. ماجد محمد الأنصاري Dr. Majed Al Ansari (@majedalansari) May 3, 2025
Israel has also blocked all aid deliveries to Gaza since March 2, prompting warnings from UN agencies of impending humanitarian disaster.
Hamas on Saturday released footage of an apparently wounded Israeli-Russian hostage held in Gaza as 11 Palestinians, including three infants, were killed in a strike on the territory, its civil defence agency said.
Gaza militants still hold 58 hostages, 34 of whom the army says are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - AFP)Location :Jerusalem, Israel
First Published:News world Israel, Qatar Spar After Netanyahu's 'Stop Playing Both Sides' Remark Over Gaza Ceasefire
