Trump: Netanyahu ‘won’t be hitting great ally’ Qatar again after last week’s strike

US President Donald Trump says Israel won’t be striking Qatar again after last week’s strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha infuriated the Gulf state and other US allies in the region.

Asked in the Oval Office whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given him any guarantees that Israel won’t strike Qatar again, Trump tells reporters, “He won’t be hitting Qatar.”

He reiterates that Doha has “been a very good ally, and a lot of people don’t know that.

Netanyahu “won’t be hitting Qatar, but he will be maybe going after…” Trump adds, indicating that he expects Israel to continue trying to target Hamas elsewhere before pivoting to discuss a related issue.

He recalls having read an article earlier today “where Hamas said they’re going to use hostages as human shields, going to bring them up from the dark tunnels and put them in the line of fire, so that if Israel goes forward, they’re going to die.”

“I thought that was very terrible and I put out a statement,” he says, referring to his Truth Social post in which he warned that “all bets are off” if Hamas adopted that strategy.

Trump is also asked about an Axios report citing unnamed Israeli officials who said that Netanyahu tipped off Trump on the Doha strike in advance and with enough time for the US to order it be called off.

The US president denies the report, sticking to his account that he was only alerted of the attack at a point last week when it was too late to reverse.