United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told reporters that Qatar is the only country to mediate an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, as he departed Israel on his way to the Qatari capital, where Gulf states on Monday pledged to activate the joint defence pact as Arab and Islamic leaders stood in solidarity following Israel’s brazen attack on the Hamas leadership inside the country.
En route to Doha on Tuesday, Rubio told reporters that Qatar’s mediation efforts depend on whether they still want to be involved following the Israeli attack, which the Gulf nation called “cowardly and treacherous”.
“We want them to know that if there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar,” he said.
But, Rubio warned that time was getting shorter to secure a deal as Israel intensified its pulverising attack on Gaza City, killing dozens in the urban centre daily and destroying numerous residential buildings, as it pushes forward with plans to seize the territory.
“The Israelis have begun to take operations there. So we think we have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen. We don’t have months any more, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks to go,” Rubio said.
“Our number one choice is that this ends through a negotiated settlement where Hamas says, ‘We’re going to demilitarise, we’re no longer going to pose a threat,’” repeating his stance on Monday in Israel that the Palestinian group needed to “cease to exist”.
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from Israel [File: Amir Cohen/Reuters]
Rubio’s visit to Qatar comes at a critical time of friction in the wake of the Israeli attack.
On Monday, Rubio affirmed the US’s unwavering support for Israel at a news conference in West Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Later that day, after Netanyahu refused to rule out another strike on Qatar to assassinate the Hamas leaders, US President Donald Trump insisted in the Oval Office that “he [Netanyahu] won’t be doing that again”.
Still, Rubio told reporters that the US and Qatar have a “close partnership”.
“In fact, we have an enhanced defence cooperation agreement, which we’ve been working on, we’re on the verge of finalising,” he said.
Israeli attack on Qatar
In an emergency summit in Doha on Monday, the leaders from Arab and Muslim countries pledged in a joint statement to take action to prevent Israel from its attacks on Palestinians.
The statement also urged states to review “diplomatic and economic relations with it [Israel], and initiate legal proceedings against it”.
But as the summit condemned the attack inside Qatar and Rubio claimed there was not much time for a ceasefire deal, attacks rang out throughout the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Tuesday.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Gaza City’s central urban hub was “on fire”.
“We will not relent, and we will not back down until the mission is accomplished,” Katz said.
At least 24 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday morning, and more were wounded in Israeli air attacks across Gaza, the Wafa news agency reported. The majority of those casualties were women and children.
