00:00We can cross now to our correspondent in Doha, Hoda Abdelhamid.
00:04We've had reports of Iranian drones attacking various targets across the Gulf region this Friday.
00:10Qatar, for the time being, hasn't been hit today.
00:13What's the atmosphere like on the streets where you are, Hoda?
00:18Well, yes, it's been 24 hours. We haven't had these alerts on our phones.
00:22But that doesn't mean that people think that they are safe now,
00:28especially that, you know, a lot of people would tell you, yeah, it's the calm before the storm.
00:33They do believe that this will be ongoing and that Qatar will be targeted again.
00:39What did happen, however, is that most of us here in Qatar had our phones jammed.
00:44The navigation system or the GPS of the phone jammed this morning,
00:47I showed that I was in the middle of the sea.
00:50And many other people told me that their phones showed that they were in another country of the GCC.
00:56You see, that puts a lot of pressure here, not only on the military side,
01:01but also on the civilian side, as, you know, the national airline.
01:06And probably this is happening, I would say, in the other countries.
01:09The national airline tries to take out those who want to leave the country.
01:15So certainly it seems to be a war that keeps on changing, that it keeps on expanding on many fronts,
01:22not just militarily, but, you know, have an economical war.
01:26You'll have the energy war and maybe also a cyber war.
01:32Now, we are now on day 14 of this conflict.
01:35How long can Gulf countries go without actively retaliating against Iran?
01:43Well, I think Yvonne has two aims here.
01:46It's either to try to drag the Gulf countries into offensive fighting
01:52or to put pressure on the Gulf countries for them to expel the U.S. bases
01:59or other U.S. assets that are in the countries.
02:01At the moment, it seems that none of these goals are going to be achieved in the near future.
02:07The Gulf countries do say openly that they reserve their right to retaliate as a consequence to Iranian attacks.
02:19But so far, they have shown resilience.
02:22They are certainly taking their precaution.
02:24They're certainly updating their strategy.
02:27And I'm sure there's a lot of backdoor negotiations with the American side on a daily basis,
02:33if not multiple times a day.
02:34But at the moment, they would rather not be dragged into an offensive war.
02:40They would rather not be dragged in the military operations,
02:45even though from Iran's point of view, they are already part of it
02:48because of the presence of U.S. troops or military hardware on their territory.
02:55But, you know, we're still in the second week of the war.
02:59It seems to be there's no ramp off for anyone at this stage in this war.
03:04So it's very probable it will last another few weeks.
03:07And, you know, it takes one bad attack or one change of mind for things to flip very quickly.
03:16But at the moment, they're choosing resilience.
03:18Now, a senior UAE diplomat has this Friday said that Tehran must halt attacks on its neighbors
03:24before Gulf countries can mediate.
03:27What exactly could that mediation by Gulf countries look like here?
03:33Well, he was echoing actually what the Qatari prime minister has been saying.
03:39If the attacks stop, we will resume our diplomatic efforts.
03:45Now, there are two countries who actually do the mediation in the GCC.
03:50That is Oman, considered a neutral country, and Qatar, who has also put a lot of effort
03:55in diplomacy with Iran and also on the economic front.
04:00But if you look at the reality on the ground, Oman has been spared the bulk of the attacks
04:06until day 12.
04:07And it's been three days in a row that the Omanis are getting hit.
04:12Two expats were killed and a port where it was oil storage facilities was put ablaze.
04:19So it seems that Iran actually doesn't want that to happen at the moment because what it's doing
04:24is that it's alienating rather than trying to keep some sort of diplomatic channel open.
04:32Hoda Abdelhamid reporting live there from Doha.
04:36Thank you very much.
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