Qatar: ex-PM says Netanyahu ‘never interested in deal, only to eliminate Palestinians’

The former Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani has said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been interested in concluding a ceasefire-prisoner swap deal with the Palestinians and does not even want peace. His only goal, added the former Qatari official, is to eliminate the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“Netanyahu wants the war to continue and the mediation efforts and meetings to continue without any noteworthy achievement,” Sheikh Al-Thani posted on X yesterday. He stressed that the Israeli premier will continue with this policy “until he completes the mission he decided to carry out, which is to liquidate and exterminate the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

This, he added, is not a new policy for Netanyahu. “This has been his policy in all peace talks since the beginning. He wants it to be just a pointless discussion that does not lead to peace based on the two-state solution.”

The former prime minister asked rhetorically if the mediators would ever go to a special session of the UN Security Council where things are called out for what they are. “The world knows, albeit late, who is obstructing the achievement of positive results for this dilemma and who is committing the ongoing killings and genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” He called on the Security Council to issue a “clear resolution” to stop this massacre and punish whoever continues it from any party.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since a cross-border incursion led by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas last October.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have since been killed by Israel, mostly women and children, and over 92,000 others have been wounded. An estimated 10,000 more Palestinians are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israel. Over ten months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which it denies. Moreover, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has asked for arrest warrants to be issued against Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as against some Hamas officials, one of whom, Ismail Haniyeh, was murdered by Israel last month.

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