Pakistan calls Israel’s Qatar strike an attack on Gaza peace mediation at UN rights debate
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ambassador Bilal Ahmad, on Tuesday described Israel’s strike on Qatar this month as an attack on the mediation process the Gulf state has been facilitating to secure a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Speaking during an urgent debate of the Council on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ahmad said Israel’s Sept. 9 airstrike on a residential neighborhood in Doha, where Hamas leaders were discussing a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal, amounted to a blatant assault on international efforts to broker peace.
Qatar has played a pivotal role as a mediator in ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas and hosts the Palestinian group’s political bureau to facilitate the process. However, Israel said it had targeted Hamas “terrorists” as the United States did when it killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011.
“The OIC Group condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli aggression against Qatar on 9 September 2025 in blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter,” the Pakistani diplomat said. “We strongly denounce this attack on the mediation process that Qatar has hosted commendably alongside regional and international countries to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory], particularly Gaza.”
