Qatar elder statesman warns Israel’s war on Iran risks spiralling out of control

A senior member of Qatar’s ruling family and veteran statesman warned on Saturday that the coming days will prove decisive, cautioning that failure to resolve the Israeli-US war on Iran could push the region into a prolonged escalation.

Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, also known as HBJ, served as Qatar’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013 and as foreign minister from 1992 to 2013.

“What is happening in the Gulf has become a war in every sense of the word,” warned HBJ in post published on X.

“The situation has grown more complex over the past two days with the entry of Ansar Allah [Houthis] - one of the factors behind this complexity, but certainly not the only one,” he added.

A billionaire and influential voice across regional capitals, HBJ has increasingly acted as an unofficial barometer of concerns many in Qatar avoid voicing publicly to sidestep angering the mercurial US President Donald Trump.

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