The ruler of Qatar hit out at Israel’s backers Tuesday, charging they had given it “free license to kill” in its war with Hamas and questioning what the conflict would achieve.
“We are saying enough is enough,” Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani told a meeting of the Shura Council, Qatar’s legislative body, according to a translation released by the royal court.
“It is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill, nor is it tenable to continue ignoring the reality of occupation, siege, and settlement.”
Meanwhile, at least 120 Filipinos in Israel have asked the government for repatriation as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said Tuesday.
Major powers, including the United States, Britain, and France, have rallied to support Israel and affirmed its right to defend itself after this month’s deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist group.
Qatar, a US ally that hosts a large US military base, also hosts an office of Hamas which doubles as the main residence of its self-exiled leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The wealthy Gulf monarchy has acted as a communications channel with Hamas and is playing a key role in negotiations to release thehostages, with four freed so far.
“It should not be allowed in our time to use cutting off water and preventing medicine and food as weapons against an entire population,” the emir said, referring to Israel’s siege of Gaza.
“We call for an earnest regional and international stance vis-a-vis this dangerous escalation that we are witnessing, and which threatens the security of the region and the world.”
He added: “We would like to ask those who have aligned with the war, and those acting to gag any dissenting opinion: what would come in the aftermath of this war?
“Would it bring security and stability to Israelis and Palestinians?
Where would the Palestinians head for afterwards?”
Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7,killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking 222 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
More than 5,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed across the Gaza Strip in relentless Israeli bombardments in retaliation for the attack, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States have all visited Israel since the October 7 attack.
In Manila, DMW officer-in-charge Hans Leo Cacdac said the department is now processing the repatriation requests, most of which are from medical workers and hotel staff.
Cacdac said the department calls them twice or thrice to make sure they really want to go home.
“Second, we are ensuring that they’ve finished their contract and that they’re really scheduled to go home,” he said in a radio interview.
He said the first batch of 60 Filipinos from Israel has already beenrepatriated to the Philippines.
The DMW is also working to ensure that the returning Filipinos will have a job to return to in
Israel once the situation there normalizes, he said.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron was Tuesday set to become the first Western leader to visit both Israel’s premier and the Palestinian president, more than two weeks into the brutal Gaza conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.
As Israel battles Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas after suffering the worst attack in its 75-year history, Macron visited to express solidarity but also to stress the need to protect Gaza’s civilian population in the withering bombing campaign.
Israeli strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip overnight killed another 140 people, Hamas said after the militant group released two more of the Israeli and foreign hostages it abducted.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Monday urged an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” for Gaza where about half of the population of 2.4 million has been driven from their homes.
Macron, the latest of a string of Western leaders to visit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the US, British, German, and Italian leaders went, was then also set to visit Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank.
“The first objective we should have today is the release of all hostages, without any distinction, because this is an awful crime to play with the lives of children, adults, old people, civilians, and soldiers,” Macron said after meeting President Isaac Herzog.
France and Israel are “linked by grief,” Macron said after earlier meeting the families of some of the French people killed or taken hostage by Hamas.
“I want you to be sure that you’re not left alone in this war against terrorism,” Macron told Herzog.
Macron stressed that the campaign must be fought without “enlarging this conflict” as concern has grown about more of Israel’s enemies across the Middle East entering the war.
On his visit Macron will also propose relaunching a “genuine peace process,” with the aim of creating a viable Palestinian state in exchange for guarantees from regional powers towards “Israel’s security,” his office said.
Two more hostages freed
Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to destroy Hamas and warned of a looming ground invasion of Gaza, raising the specter of heavy urban combat, and heightening the risk for the hostages.
Israel on Monday greeted with relief the release of two of the captives — Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85 — who were freed late Monday and airlifted to an Israeli hospital to be reunited with family.
Hamas released them citing “compelling humanitarian” reasons, after mediation by Qatar and Egypt, but did not free their elderly husbands.
Their release came days after a US mother and her teenage daughter were also handed over to Israel.
Earlier in Washington, US President Joe Biden allowed for the possibility of a ceasefire if the others are freed, telling journalists that “we should have those hostages released and then we can talk.”
Lifshitz recounted the shock of her abduction by Hamas gunmen, telling Israeli media: “They loaded me on a motorcycle sideways so I wouldn’t fall, with one terrorist holding me from the front and the other from behind.”
‘Shattered body’
The Hamas surprise attack, which left Israel reeling and enraged, led it to launch operation “Swords of Iron” in which it has fired a near-continuous barrage of strikes on Gaza and called up more than 300,000 reservists.
Israel has cut off water, food, fuel, and energy supplies to Gaza, and only a trickle of aid has been allowed to cross into Gaza from Egypt in recent days under a US-brokered deal.
The UN World Health Organization warned that more than one-third of Gaza’s hospitals are “not functioning” and limited fuel supplies were impacting ambulances in the territory, where thousands have been injured.
While the Israeli military has claimed success in “eliminating high-ranking commanders” and destroying Hamas infrastructure, humanitarian groups have said that Palestinian civilians are paying too high a price.
Thousands of buildings have been leveled in the densely populated enclave, with entire city blocks reduced to rubble and many victims still feared buried beneath.
Gaza City resident Ayman Abu Shamalah was among the tens of thousands who heeded an Israeli warning to flee the north of the enclave, but this did not spare his family from tragedy.
An Israeli air strike on Rafah in southern Gaza killed his pregnant wife as well as their three-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, he said.
“They put my son’s shattered body in a blue bag,” he said.
Tunnel labyrinth
Israel has shown little sign of slowing its looming offensive, although the timing of an anticipated full-scale ground invasion remains unclear.
Hamas has built a labyrinth of tunnels that the Israeli military has darkly dubbed the “Gaza Metro” and would be expected to meet invading forces with booby traps and surprise attacks, spelling costly house-to-house fighting.
There are also fears about how Hamas’s allies around the Middle East would respond to a ground war.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War has reported a rise in attacks on Israeli and US targets from Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
There have been daily exchanges of cross-border fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
At least 41 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally — mostly combatants but also at least four civilians, including a Reuters journalist. And four people have been killed in Israel –three soldiers and a civilian.
The pace of evacuations has increased on both sides of the border, with the UN saying nearly 20,000 people had fled villages in southern Lebanon. – Vito Barcelo with AFP