Trump fumes, Hamas scoffs: Will Israel’s Qatar strikes backfire?
While the targeted Hamas leaders' fate is unknown, it is clear that the United States is unhappy with Tuesday’s strike and that Qatar will distance itself from mediating a Gaza ceasefire deal.
TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to strike Hamas' leadership was a major risk.
The Israeli fighter jets that dropped 10 precision munitions on a Doha villa Tuesday afternoon targeted a Hamas leadership meeting to discuss what US President Donald Trump called his final ultimatum to the group to free Israeli hostages in Gaza and engage in negotiations to end the Gaza war. Hamas named five of its members killed in the strike, but said the group’s top leadership survived. Israel is still working to determine whether senior figures such as Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator, were also killed.
Qatar condemned the operation as a violation of its sovereignty.
Qatar has been hosting the Hamas leadership since 2012 at the request of the United States. It has also funded the group and Gaza’s impoverished population at Israel’s request. Since Hamas' massacre in southern Israel almost two years ago and the ensuing war with Israel, Qatar has served as a go-between along with Egypt and the United States.
