DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates on Friday said it summoned Israel’s deputy ambassador over Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s subsequent “hostile and unacceptable” remarks, in another sign of strain between the two countries with close economic and defense ties.
The UAE, the most prominent Arab country to normalize ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords, told David Ohad Horsandi “the continuation of such hostile and provocative rhetoric …solidifies a situation that is unacceptable and cannot be overlooked,” the Emirati foreign ministry said in a statement.
Horsandi is currently the most senior Israeli person in Abu Dhabi after Ambassador Yossi Shelley was reportedly recalled due to complaints by his hosts of gross misbehavior and protocol violations.
Abu Dhabi also slammed the “blatant and cowardly Israeli attack that targeted the State of Qatar.”
“Any aggression against a GCC member state constitutes an attack on the collective Gulf security framework,” the statement added, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council regional bloc.
Asked about the summoning, a spokeswoman at the Israeli embassy told AFP that “Israel carried out a targeted strike against senior Hamas leadership who have used Qatar as a base from which to wage war on Israel.”
There was no comment from the Foreign Ministry.
Even before Tuesday’s strike on the Qatari capital Doha, relations between Abu Dhabi and the government had been uneasy over a planned discussion on West Bank annexation, which the UAE said would constitute a “red line.”
Israel’s attempt to kill Hamas political leaders prompted international condemnation, but on Wednesday, an unrepentant Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or “bring them to justice, because if you don’t, we will.”
The UAE, a major oil producer and regional trade and commerce hub with diplomatic sway across the Middle East, signed a US-brokered normalization agreement with Israel under the Abraham Accords in 2020, which paved the way for close economic and security ties, including defense cooperation.
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan was the first state leader to visit Doha after the attack, and he toured Gulf Arab countries to coordinate positions on the Israeli strike.
The Doha attack was especially sensitive because Qatar has long been mediating Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, along with Egypt and the United States, and Doha was hosting the talks.
Israel’s security establishment is said to believe that the attack failed to kill the targets.
The UAE is also reportedly considering a Qatari request to close its embassy in Tel Aviv in response to the Doha strike. And it is already eager to rid Abu Dhabi of Shelley over his reported misconduct, including breaches of protocol and security regulations.
Doha will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit this Sunday and Monday to discuss the Israeli attack.
The Abraham Accords, brokered by US President Donald Trump during his first term in office, saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.
The deals were seen as a foreign policy triumph for Trump, who has been seeking during his second term to persuade regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to also normalize relations with Israel, efforts complicated by Israel’s expansion of the Gaza war.
The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 64,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the ensuing fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 465. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.