‘We are ready to accept a deal (with Hamas) that would end this war, based on the cabinet decision,’ Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said this morning. Yet whatever diplomatic momentum existed evaporated into thin air hours later. In an unprecedented Israeli operation in Qatar, Israel targeted the very Hamas officials they were supposed to be negotiating with. In the blink of an eye, smoke was rising from a building in the Qatari capital, Doha. Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, was targeted in the attack. Israel said the raid was in response to this week’s Jerusalem bus attack and the atrocities of October 7.
The Qataris are livid; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu not only made a mockery of the diplomatic process but ordered what could arguably be called a hostile act against a country in the Middle East whose diplomatic services are in high demand.
‘While the State of Qatar strongly condemns this assault, it confirms that it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behaviour and the ongoing disruption of regional security, nor any act that targets its security and sovereignty,’ Qatari government spokesman Majed al-Ansari wrote on X.
Operations like this aren’t new for Israel, of course. The Israelis are known to have some of the best intelligence assets available; the Mossad is one of the most sophisticated, capable and impressive intelligence services in the world. The list of successful tactical strikes like the one that took place in Qatar today is long, from the years-long campaign against the Black September terrorist group, the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah military official Imad Mughniyeh in Syria to the 2010 killing of Mahmoud al-Mabbouh in Dubai. The message is as clear as day: if Israel wants you dead, you will eventually be dead.
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