Qatar says it has a right to respond to Israeli attack that killed six in Doha: latest

Qatar said it has the right to respond to Israel’s strike in Doha that targeted Hamas political leaders, which it decried as a “blatant attack”.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, described Tuesday’s attack as “state terrorism” that targeted the security and stability of the region.

“Qatar… reserves the right to respond to this blatant attack,” he told a late night press conference.

“We believe that today we have reached a pivotal moment. There must be a response from the entire region to such barbaric actions.”

US president Donald Trump said he was “very unhappy” about Israel’s airstrike that killed six people, saying it advances neither Israel nor America’s goals.

Trump called the strike on Hamas’s political wing “unfortunate” and said his administration was only informed by the US military as the attack was taking place.

Hamas said five of its lower-ranking members and a Qatari security official were killed in the airstrike, but that all its leaders survived the attack.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike on Qatar was “entirely justified”.