Qatar convened an emergency summit of Arab and Islamic states on Monday in response to last week’s Israeli air strike on Doha, with delegates considering a draft resolution that condemns what it calls Israel’s “hostile acts including genocide, ethnic cleansing, [and] starvation.”
The meeting, called after the strike that targeted members of Hamas’s negotiating team, was dominated by efforts to articulate a collective regional response and to press the international community for accountability. The draft resolution, seen by Reuters, denounces the attack and warns it threatens “prospects of peace and coexistence.” Israel has strongly denied the allegations contained in the draft.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani urged countries attending the summit to end what he described as international “double standards” and to punish Israel for the strike. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said Qatar remained “a very great ally” and cautioned that when states carry out attacks they must be careful. Departing for Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Mr. Trump “didn't like the way [the Qatar attack] went down.” Rubio is scheduled to meet Israeli leaders to discuss the war in Gaza and other regional issues.
The Israeli strike on Doha drew a rare unanimous expression of concern from the UN Security Council last week, with council members calling for de-escalation and expressing solidarity with Qatar. Israel has defended the operation, with President Isaac Herzog saying it was necessary to “remove some of the people if they are not willing to get a deal” to end the Gaza war.
Hamas said its negotiating team largely survived the strike on Sept. 9 but that five of its members were killed, including the son of the group's chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya. A Qatari security officer was also among the dead. Qatar has hosted the Hamas political bureau since 2012 and has played a central role as a mediator in indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel.
Analysts and diplomats attending or following the summit said any form of military retaliation by Arab or Islamic states against Israel is effectively out of the question, leaving the meeting to focus on diplomatic measures, condemnatory resolutions and calls for sanctions or international legal action. It remained unclear what immediate, practical steps the summit could adopt that would change the situation on the ground or the trajectory of the wider Gaza conflict.
Qatar’s geopolitical role and its relationship with Western powers add complexity to responses. The Gulf state hosts a significant US military presence and has long positioned itself as an interlocutor between Israel, Hamas and other regional actors. The strike on Doha has therefore prompted intensive diplomatic activity, with both regional capitals and Western governments navigating competing imperatives of security, alliance management and preventing further escalation.
Delegates at the summit are expected to issue formal statements condemning the strike and to press for international mechanisms to hold Israel accountable. Observers said the meeting may aim to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel while seeking to preserve channels for negotiations that Qatar has long facilitated.
The emergency summit comes amid a broader and ongoing international effort to manage the Gaza war’s humanitarian fallout and to revive prospects for negotiated releases, ceasefires and prisoner exchanges. The Doha strike — and the diplomatic shockwaves it produced — has underscored the fragility of those efforts and the contested role of third-party mediators in the conflict.