Qatar's prime minister brands those behind Gaza's situation "war criminals" as mediation push continues

DOHA: Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, has said that whoever is responsible for the situation in Gaza is a "war criminal", describing Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack as something no argument or justification can defend. The remarks came on Tuesday in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan on "Piers Morgan Uncensored".

The intervention carries added weight because of who is speaking. Sheikh Mohammed leads a small state whose diplomatic credibility rests on its willingness to host talks involving parties that refuse to negotiate with each other directly, and he said Qatar's mediation had been "undermined from day one of the war". He has repeatedly positioned Doha as a channel for back-channel contact with Israel, Hamas and Iran — a role he described as difficult but indispensable.

His comments come as Qatar continues to juggle multiple simultaneous crises. A caption accompanying the interview photograph shows him speaking before a quadrilateral meeting of the United States, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar at the Burgenstock hotel complex in Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026 — a reminder that Doha's diplomatic bandwidth is now stretched across Gaza, the US-Israeli war with Iran, and Gulf security arrangements.

On the October 7 attacks, Sheikh Mohammed was careful to separate condemnation from criticism. The Hamas-led attack on Israel was "a massacre, and should be condemned", and "whoever was responsible should be held accountable". But he said the response that followed was not justifiable. "Hospitals have been targeted, schools have been targeted. Whatever the justifications and the arguments, nothing is justifying this," he told Morgan.

The Qatari leader also questioned whether the October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza is holding in any meaningful sense. Since it ostensibly came into effect, he said, "more than 1,400 Gazans have been killed". He added that almost 70 percent of the Strip is under Israeli occupation and that Israeli forces have not allowed access to it, concluding that Israel is "not fulfilling their commitments of this agreement". In his view, the pattern pointed to intentions different from those declared in the deal.

That framing — that the violations are deliberate rather than the product of operational drift — is significant because it moves the dispute away from the technical language of ceasefire compliance and toward questions of intent and legal accountability. If a state that is a party to a ceasefire is judged to be withholding access to nearly 70 percent of the territory it governs while civilians continue to die, the questions that follow concern enforcement mechanisms, monitoring, and whether any agreement signed with Israel can be verified on the ground.

Sheikh Mohammed did not specify what form accountability should take, but his use of the term "war criminal" places the issue in the same category of international legal exposure that Gaza has become a focus of. The remark carries particular force given that he is the leader of a state that hosts the main diplomatic channel for Gaza-related talks, and that speaks to the difficulty of brokering peace while publicly naming what he describes as war crimes.

He was equally direct about Qatar's own experience of the war. Israel launched an unprecedented strike in Doha in 2025, targeting senior Hamas officials who had gathered for negotiations; the attack caused a deadly explosion and violated Qatar's sovereignty. Recalling the episode, he said: "We were attacked by Israel while we were mediating and trying to push for Trump's proposal at that time in Doha. It was unacceptable and condemned."

He characterised the strike as setting "a precedent of attacking the mediator that has never happened throughout the wars in history", adding that "Netanyahu has crossed the line like he has crossed other lines before that". The episode remains central to Qatar's understanding of its role: the country has historically treated talks as a service it provides to all sides, insulated by its neutrality and its refusal to align publicly with any party.

That is why Sheikh Mohammed says he sees diplomacy behind closed doors as the most effective route to progress. "We are trying to do our best to give the best advice to the US government on how to reach a solution, as well as to the Iranians," he said — an indication that Doha is pressing Washington and Tehran separately, rather than waiting on a formal process.

On the US-Israeli war with Iran, he identified three matters that must be resolved for the conflict to end: agreement on Tehran's right to "peaceful nuclear power" and the lifting of sanctions; agreement on freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz in line with international law; and reform of regional security arrangements, including those involving the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran.

The third, in his view, is the hardest. It "wouldn't happen without dialogue between Iran and GCC", he said, and would require setting the principles of what a good neighbourhood relationship should look like — including non-interference in each other's affairs and non-aggression. He described an eventual shared economic space in which the region could cooperate on energy, trade and business, "and allow the chance for this region to unleash its potential".

Taken together, the interview presents Qatar's mediation as a three-front effort: pressing for Gaza ceasefire compliance, advising the US and Iran on ending their war, and quietly laying groundwork for a broader Gulf-Iran normalisation. It also underscores the limits of that role. A mediator who publicly declares that those responsible for Gaza are war criminals, and who says Israel attacked him while he was mediating, is making clear that Doha's patience is not unlimited — even if he still believes quiet talks are the only way forward.