Israel attacks Hamas senior leadership in Doha, Qatar
Qatar has said it reserves the right to respond after Israel bombed a building where Hamas leaders were meeting to discuss truce negotiations.
Qatar has condemned Israel’s strike on Hamas leadership in Qatar as “state-sponsored terrorism”, as Jerusalem’s attack took the fight with the terror group to a country closely aligned with the US.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in a televised address Qatar would not tolerate violations of its sovereignty and reserved the right to respond.
However, Doha has confirmed it will continue ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas said its primary leaders in Doha survived Tuesday’s strike, but five members were killed, including the son of Khalil al-Hayya, its senior negotiator. Qatar said a member of its security forces was killed.
The US was aware of Israel’s plans in advance, but the attack drew a rare rebuke from the White House for striking inside a country that has hosted negotiators and sought to bring an end to the war.
The strike also reflected a shifting balance of power in the region that has allowed Israel to pursue its rivals with few restraints. Qatar, which hosts the US’s most important air base in the region, condemned the attack.
“Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” Mr Trump said on Truth Social.
“However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal. I immediately directed Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to inform the Qataris of the impending attack, which he did, however, unfortunately, too late to stop the attack. I view Qatar as a strong Ally and friend of the US, and feel very badly about the location of the attack.”
The UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt condemned the Israeli attack. A spokesperson for the European Union said the raid breached international law and threatened to destabilise the region.
The attack represents a sharp escalation of tactics against Hamas, whose military leadership has been wiped out in Gaza by Israel. It risks derailing ceasefire talks by targeting the group’s senior negotiators in the country that has hosted them throughout the war.
The strike also reflects how Israel has pursued its rivals with few restraints.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said his government was informed by the US of the attack 16 minutes after the raid took place. “The Israeli enemy,” he said, used weapons that couldn’t be detected by radar.
The strike was the latest in a year of brazen attacks that have highlighted Israel’s military and intelligence prowess, along with its appetite for using them. In a relatively short period, Israel has wiped out the leadership of Hamas, Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear program; destroyed much of Syria’s military equipment; killed militant leaders and other enemies in Gaza, Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, and; simultaneously exploded pagers and walkie-talkies carried by thousands of rank-and-file Hezbollah members.
Israel’s air force has demonstrated its ability to attack at great distances with repeated strikes on the Houthi militia in Yemen and hundreds of sorties over Iran, each more than 1600km away.
Tuesday’s attack targeted Hamas leaders Mr Hayya and Zaher Jabarin, one of the Israelis and a Qatari official said. Many of Hamas’s top political leaders were gathered in a meeting at the time of the attack, Arab officials said.
“Israel acted wholly independently,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at an event organised by the US embassy in Jerusalem. “This can open an end of the war in Gaza.” Mr Netanyahu said he had met Israeli security chiefs at noon local time to authorise the strikes. The attack targeted the same location Hamas leaders had celebrated Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, he said.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier warned Hamas leaders abroad that they would be “annihilated” if the group didn’t lay down its arms.
Hamas’s political leaders maintain an office and residences in Doha. Video verified by Storyful showed smoke rising from the Qatari capital amid a series of explosions.
Israel has a history of attacking Hamas’s political leaders. In July 2024, it killed the group’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, with a bomb in his room at a tightly guarded military guesthouse in Tehran. Israel sent a team of agents to kill Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room in 2010. It botched an attempt to poison Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, Jordan, in 1997.
Officials in Israel and the US have long been frustrated that leaders of Hamas, which the US has designated as a terrorist group, are able to live openly and comfortably in Doha while their militant colleagues carry out bombings and other attacks in Israel.
On Tuesday, the group claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed at least six people at a Jerusalem bus stop.
The Qatar arrangement has persisted in part because of the need to maintain contact with the group as mediators try to craft an end to the war in Gaza, which was sparked by the deadly Hamas-led October 2023 attacks on Israel. More than 64,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants.
Talks have been stalled for months. After negotiating over proposals for phased ceasefire deals for much of the year, Israel shifted course and now says it will only discuss a deal that involves the return of all the remaining hostages held by Hamas and the militant group’s removal from power.
The US recently offered Hamas a new peace proposal, which called on the group to hand over its remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and a US guarantee of talks to end the war, according to Arab officials familiar with the talks. Hamas leaders were to meet on Tuesday to discuss the proposal, the officials said.
Doha has hosted senior Israeli officials, including the head of the country’s foreign intelligence agency, in talks intended to free Israeli hostages and end the war in Gaza.
It isn’t the first time Qatar has found itself to be a battleground in Israel’s expanding war against Iran and its militant allies, which include Hamas. After the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June, Tehran launched a missile attack on the US military base in Qatar. The attack, which had been telegraphed, caused little damage after air defences shot down most of the missiles.
Western leaders condemned the Israeli attacks. “Today’s Israeli strikes on Qatar are unacceptable, whatever the reason,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “I express my solidarity with Qatar and its Emir, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Under no circumstances should the war spread throughout the region.”
“I condemn Israel’s strikes on Doha, which violate Qatar’s sovereignty and risk further escalation across the region.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “The priority must be an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and a huge surge in aid into Gaza.”
Dow Jones
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