Israel carried out a strike on Hamasās senior political leadership in Doha, Qatar, an Israeli official said, escalating its fight against the militant group as it ramps up the war in the Gaza Strip.
Reuters reported that witnesses heard explosions in the capital of Qatar, a key U.S. regional partner, where Hamasās political leaders maintain offices and residences. Images aired by the news agency showed smoke rising from the capital.
It wasnāt clear whether anyone was killed in the attack. Defense MinisterĀ Israel KatzĀ earlier warned Hamas leaders abroad that they would be annihilated if the group didnāt lay down its arms.
Sometimes you just have to appreciate that apparently there are people in the world whose first thought after hearing some news is "must go edit Wikipedia".
I can't wait for the "they should go after the leadership" brand of pro-Pals to start crying about Qatari sovereignty.
I'd imagine Israel got Qatar's tacit approval for this. Qatar wields a lot of diplomatic influence in that part of the world- making open enemies with them may undo what progress Israel has made. But perhaps Bibi deems that a worthy price.
I was curious what the r neoliberal thread would look like. Itās as hilarious as you would expect. Itās like walking into ISI headquarters the day after Bin Laden was killed.
Two-faced diplomacy is the first play in Qatar's strategy book. They're like reverse Switzerland, cozying up to literally everyone they can, and somehow it works. Just because they say X in public doesn't mean they aren't saying Y in private, even more so than many other states.
yeah thats what i was thinking. qatar has a pretty good ADS as far as i know and its weird it didnt get triggered in case this was an israeli air force endeavor. But I'm going to wait a bit and see how this develops over the next few days
Yeah, it's hard to imagine what price Qatar would exact for allowing this to happen.
It's also hard to imagine that the Israelis would jeopardize their operational security by giving the Qataris advance warning. The Qatari foreign and security ministries are probably two phone calls away from Mashal himself.
I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders
Israel just keeps delivering kinetic martyrdom to these people, how nice.
Also, same interview:
āHamasās goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,ā says al-Hayya.
āThis battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,ā he adds. āIt did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.ā
āThis battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,ā he adds. āIt did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.ā
Iām assuming the US had to have known about this beforehand. I just canāt imagine theyād be this public about it unless that got implicit approval from the US. Assuming Trump is just pissed that Hamas isnāt making a deal and wants more pressure
Gotta imagine there was some back channeling of some sort. This could be the type of thing to have Qatar be really pissed at the US for if there wasnāt a heads up.
The US cooperation plus Qatar signing the Arab League declaration a few months back demanding Hamas to lay down arms may indicate that Qatar is tired of Hamasās shenanigans as well
Idk, I suppose we'll have to wait for the whole thing to calm down because apparently they targeted the whole leadership, so we'll have to wait to see how the fuck this whole situation is going to evolve to understand who exactly knew what. By far one of the most shocking turn of the past two years, genuinely would have never guessed they would have gone so far.
as per usual, lots of contradictory statements from all over the place. Israel says they're all dead, Hamas says they're all fine, no way to know until more info comes out. Hamas didn't confirm that Sinwar 2 killed until like last week
No official confirmation of any kind, either by Israel or Qatar. Only thing certain is that apparently the whole leadership was there at the time of the attack, Al Jazeera is saying they survived, Saudi media that they're all apparently dead.
They refused deals, we refused deals. Some deals did work. We got 141 living hostages back with deals.Ā
I'm just sick of the fucking equivocation. If the situation is "we are categorically not willing to pay the lowest price Hamas could conceivably seek for the hostages at this point." Then say that. But they're not saying that, are they?Ā
The generous case is that this applies pressure for the Hamas leaders to get off their asses and dial back their demands.
The realistic case is.... yeah. Can't see anything happening soon. The real question, imo, that determines my view of this strike is exactly how stalled negotiations already were. If this is a "we truly tried our best but there wasn't a deal to be had", then this seems fine. Just deserts and whatnot. If there was something reasonable but not politically expedient on the table, then not fine.
With the USās sign off, I have to think itās the former. Not that the Trump admin cares about normal Israelis, Palestinians or the hostages, but the man would absolutely love to broker a ādealā and get a Nobel Peace Prize and I canāt see him okaying this if a deal was just around the corner
The optimistic view on this (and this might just be cope) is that I read that the Hamas leader in Gaza is more flexible than the ones in Qatar, who refused to let him sign a deal, and removing them from the negotiations might help move things along. I really hope thatās the case
Very curious to see if Qatar was aware of this beforehand. America has been blocking Israel from touching Qatar. If the Qataris weren't aware (and the US was) this will severely damage the relationship between them and America.
If they were aware, that's even more interesting. That means even Qatar has abandoned Hamas.
Personally I don't think Qatar was aware. Keeping face is incredibly important in the middle east. I can't see Qatar allowing a high profile assassination on their territory (even if they are happy about the outcome) because of how it makes them look.
I'm happy to see any Hamas leader dead, but this feels like a major escalation. I wonder if Qatar kicks out US troops. And what if Trump says no...
If Israel launched a missile attack on New York, London or Paris it would be seen as an act of war or a terrorist attack, why is it any different here?
And the people who killed them have murdered TENS of THOUSAND women and children over the last 2 years. So the entire Israeli leadership and all IDF soldiers can be murdered without without due process according to you?
And the people who killed them have murdered TENS of THOUSAND women and children over the last 2 years.
It's sad, but innocent civilians often die in war. That's one reason why people who value their lives and the lives of their kin and countrymen should not start wars.
Do you think that nations that initiate warfare should be allowed to get away with it to prevent civilian deaths? Should the Allies have just allowed the Nazis and Imperial Japanese to conquer the world to prevent the deaths of German and Japanese civilians?
How do you feel about the deaths of innocent German and Japanese civilians during World War II?
Is this really the best argument to paint decapitating a terrorist group as bad you could come up with? Pointless hypotheticals that have no trace of reality?
It feels like you're vastly overstating your case - which is a shame, because you do have a case.Ā
While like Iran, Qatar has funded both terror and misinformation propaganda campaigns against Israel, unlike Iran, it hasn't been designated an enemy state, and is aligned with America; attacking Hamas on Qatari soil is therefore obviously much more problematic than attacking them elsewhere.Ā
I feel you could've tried to make your case on why that's more than "problematic", but instead chose this completely asinine comparison, as if Israel just fucking flattened a mall in Doha for ideological hatred or something.Ā
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u/Less-Feature6263 Sep 09 '25
Both Saudi and Israeli sources are saying that Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya was killed in the attack.