Hendra Wijaya
Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, has said that those responsible for the situation in the Gaza Strip amount to "war criminals", in remarks made to British journalist Piers Morgan on the programme Piers Morgan Uncensored on Tuesday. Asked about the nature of Israel's actions in Gaza, the Gulf state's leader delivered one of the most direct condemnations by a senior Arab mediator of the war that followed October 2023.
The comments carry unusual weight because Doha has spent more than two years positioning itself as a channel for de-escalation — hosting hostage and ceasefire talks, pressing Western capitals for restraint, and repeatedly warning that the region cannot absorb another full-scale war. Sheikh Mohammed's own account of that record, however, was less diplomatic: he said Qatar's attempts to broker a ceasefire have been "undermined from day one of the war".
He began by drawing a distinction that has become central to the regional debate over the conflict. The October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, he said, was "a massacre, and should be condemned", and those who carried it out should be held accountable. The Israeli response that followed, by contrast, could not be defended. "Hospitals have been targeted, schools have been targeted," he said, adding: "Whatever the justifications and the arguments, nothing is justifying this."
Part of his argument focused on the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire, which he described as already broken in practice. More than 1,400 Gazans have been killed since the deal ostensibly took effect, according to the Qatari leader, a figure that undercuts claims that the agreement has delivered even limited stability. He said Israel has not honoured the terms it signed.
On territory, he claimed that almost 70 percent of the Gaza Strip is under Israeli occupation and sealed off from Gazans, and that Israeli forces have prevented access rather than permitted it. If that is accurate, the practical effect of the agreement is not withdrawal but a reshaped occupation, with the population under a tighter perimeter than before. "They are not fulfilling their commitments of this agreement," Sheikh Mohammed said. "This is just showing that they have different intentions."
The sharpest language was reserved for the Israeli strike on Qatar itself. In 2025, Israel carried out what was described as an unprecedented attack on Doha, targeting senior Hamas officials who had gathered for negotiations. The resulting deadly explosion struck a country that was, at the time, actively working to promote a US-backed proposal. Sheikh Mohammed said Israel attacked Qatar "while we were mediating", adding that the action was unacceptable and condemned. He described it as setting "a precedent of attacking the mediator that has never happened throughout the wars in history" — a claim about a diplomatic norm, not a legal one, but one that carries real consequences for anyone willing to host talks.
The wider implication is that the traditional shield of mediator status has been shown to be penetrable. Gulf states have long relied on a tacit bargain in which Western and Israeli partners tolerate their hosting of talks, in exchange for quiet leverage over Palestinian affairs and Iran. Once that assumption is tested, the incentive structure for mediation changes: it becomes riskier, more expensive, and dependent on explicit guarantees that rarely exist. "Netanyahu has crossed the line, like he has crossed other lines before that," Sheikh Mohammed said.
Asked how he has persisted, the prime minister pointed to private, behind-the-closed-doors diplomacy, which he considers the most effective route to progress. He said Qatar is "trying to do our best" to advise both the US government and the Iranians. That channel has been active: a quadrilateral meeting bringing together the United States, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar was held at the Burgenstock hotel complex in Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026.
Much of the interview was devoted to the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran, for which the Qatari leader set out three conditions for an end. The first is agreement on Tehran's right to peaceful nuclear power, coupled with the removal of sanctions. The second is a deal on freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz in line with international law — a chokepoint whose closure has global consequences well beyond the region. The third is reform of regional security arrangements, which would require direct engagement between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
He was expansive on what such an engagement should produce: dialogue establishing "the principles of what a good neighbourhood relationship should be", including mutual non-interference and non-aggression, alongside practical cooperation in energy, trade and business. The stated goal is to allow the region to "unleash its potential" — an economic argument as much as a security one, aimed at building constituencies for stability from below.
For Gaza, the immediate questions are whether the ceasefire's terms can be enforced, whether the occupation described by the Qatari prime minister is rolled back, and whether the diplomatic architecture that once assumed Gaza was a solvable file now applies at all. Sheikh Mohammed's position — condemning October 7 while rejecting the response to it, and warning that a precedent has been set — captures the strategic trap facing the region: rules that fail to be applied selectively harden, while the channels built to resolve conflicts come under growing attack.
Comments (0)