Israel, the United States and Qatar have agreed to establish a “trilateral mechanism to enhance coordination, improve communication, resolve mutual grievances and strengthen collective efforts to prevent threats,” the White House said on Monday.
The announcement came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
During the meeting, Netanyahu and Trump called Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is also Qatar’s foreign affairs minister, and the Israeli premier expressed regret for violating the Gulf state’s sovereignty when Israel killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security guard in a Sept. 9 airstrike in Doha.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his deep regret that Israel’s missile strike against Hamas targets in Qatar unintentionally killed a Qatari serviceman,” per a White House readout of the call. “He further expressed regret that, in targeting Hamas leadership during hostage negotiations, Israel violated Qatari sovereignty and affirmed that Israel will not conduct such an attack again in the future.”
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the Israeli leader told his Qatari counterpart that “Israel was targeting Hamas, not Qataris.”
Netanyahu also assured him that “Israel has no plan to violate your sovereignty again in the future.”
“I know your leadership has grievances against Israel and Israel has grievances against Qatar, from support for the Muslim Brotherhood to how Israel is portrayed on Al Jazeera to support for anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses,” Netanyahu continued.
“I welcome the [U.S.] president’s idea to establish a trilateral group to address both our countries outstanding grievances,” he added.
After the call, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, stated in Hebrew that the Doha strike was “important, just and supremely moral.”
“Whoever sends monsters to burn babies, rape women and abduct elderly women must know that there is no place in the world where he is safe,” he stated. “It is time to tell the world the truth: Qatar is a state that supports terrorism, funds terrorism and incites terrorism.”
Ben-Gvir and other members of Netanyahu’s coalition in the Knesset have suggested that they would either oppose a deal to end the war without total victory or have set conditions on the kind of deal to which they would agree.
Those threats to oppose a deal have raised the prospect that Netanyahu’s government could collapse, but opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Saturday that he had informed Washington that he would back the government in the event of a deal.
“Netanyahu has a safety net from me for a hostage deal and ending the war,” Lapid stated in Hebrew. “It has a majority in the Knesset and a majority in the country.”
Ahead of the White House meeting on Monday, some U.S. politicians suggested that they were also divided over a potential deal.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote that he opposed Israel ending military operations if “Hamas is not eliminated forever.”
Speaking in favor of a ceasefire, seven Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), stated that Trump should press Netanyahu to “end the war in Gaza, bring home the hostages, surge humanitarian aid to Gaza, take the dangerous step of annexation off the table and begin the path to lasting peace.”
