 "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a cabinet meeting with the US President's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on Thursday. Israel GPO")
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and top advisor Jared Kushner have said that they felt “a little betrayed” by Israel after it launched a series of attacks on its ally Qatar last month.
In an interview with CBS News, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Kushner, said that the president felt the “Israelis were getting a little bit out of control” after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a strike on Hamas leaders in Doha.
“It had a metastasising effect because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks. We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them,” Witkoff said.
Kushner said that Israel’s actions made Trump realise “that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests.”
Last month, Netanyahu formally apologised to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani for an Israeli airstrike in Doha on September 9 that killed a Qatari security guard and several low-ranking Hamas members.
Qatar had suspended its mediation role with Hamas following the Israeli airstrike in Doha, which targeted — but failed to eliminate — senior Hamas leaders. The strike also killed a Qatari security guard, further straining diplomatic channels.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsMeanwhile, Hamas handed over to Israel the remains of one more hostage on Friday night, after insisting it was committed to returning all the dead captives still unaccounted for under Gaza’s ruins after two years of war.
“Israel received, via the Red Cross, the coffin of a deceased hostage who was returned” to its security forces in Gaza and would be identified at a medical analysis centre in Israel, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas spearheaded by US President Donald Trump, the Palestinian militant group returned all 20 surviving hostages and the remains of nine out of 28 known deceased ones, not counting the remains handed over Friday night.
Netanyahu has said that he is “determined” to bring back all the remaining dead hostages from Gaza after Hamas declared that it has returned the remains of all the captives it has retrieved, adding that it cannot recover any more bodies without special equipment.
Netanyahu’s comments came as he addressed a memorial for victims of the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, where he vowed to fight terrorism with “full force”. Israel has accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire deal by not returning all the bodies, although the US has downplayed the claim.
With inputs from agencies