Mediator Qatar warns Israeli strikes that killed over 400 could ‘ignite the region’

DOHA: Gaza war mediator Qatar on Tuesday strongly condemned Israel’s resumed attacks that killed more than 400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Qatar’s foreign ministry “warns that (Israel’s) escalating policies will ultimately ignite the region and undermine its security and stability”, it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel had “no alternative” other than to resume military operations in Gaza after its efforts to secure the release of hostages failed.

“Without the release of our hostages, Israel has no alternative but resuming military operations”, he said on X, accusing Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas of rejecting an offer to extend the ceasefire’s first phase that ended earlier this month.

As well as freeing the roughly 60 captives still in Gaza, Israel wants Hamas to disarm and step down from power in the territory. The Iran-backed group, designated a terrorist organization by the US and many other countries, had been calling for Israeli troops to withdraw.

Hamas said at least 404 people have been killed while many others are missing since the airstrikes began.

The Gaza operation, along with others overnight by Israel on Lebanon and Syria and US attacks on the Houthis in Yemen since Saturday, have ended the relative calm in the Middle East in recent weeks.

Gold and oil prices have risen. The former increased to a fresh all-time high, while Brent crude is up about 2.1% to $72.04 a barrel in the past two days, heading for its best week since early-January. The Israeli shekel weakened 0.7% as of 12:23 p.m. local time, the worst performer in Bloomberg’s basket of 31 ‘expanded major’ currencies.

The Gaza bombardment is the fiercest since a truce brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US started in January. It officially ended in early March “- with Hamas having released around 35 hostages and Israel freeing more than 1,000 imprisoned Palestinians. There was no official extension of the deal as the warring sides disagreed on the way forward during talks through the mediators.

Israel had warned that it could restart military operations if Hamas didn’t agree to release more hostages, of which it believes around 25 are alive.

After the strikes began, Hamas said Netanyahu had decided to “overturn the ceasefire agreement, putting the captives in Gaza at an unknown fate.”

The group earlier accused Israel of failing to meet its commitments under the truce, citing the Netanyahu government’s decision to stop aid supplies getting into Gaza.

Large swathes of the Palestinian territory have been destroyed in the 17 months of war, with the vast majority of its 2 million population displaced. More than 48,000 people have been killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health authority.

In recent days, Israel gathered evidence that led it to conclude Hamas was planning attacks on Israeli troops in the Gaza buffer zone and a cross-border raid into Israeli communities along the lines of the October 2023 attack that triggered the war, according to a senior military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. About 1,200 people were killed in the October 7 raid and 250 abducted.

Israeli intelligence saw what it believed to be Hamas preparations for such actions, the officer said, with the experience of Oct. 7 informing the military’s decision to act preemptively, rather than wait and see if they are serious.

The officer said the air operation is ongoing and decisions about whether to increase activity would be made by the government.

The renewed attacks are opposed by some of the families of hostages.

“The worst fear of the families, of the hostages and of the citizens of Israel has come to pass,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, one of the biggest such groups in Israel, said on Tuesday. “The Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages.”

Far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition government said Israel had no choice.

Israel consulted the US on the operation, the White House said.