The strikes against Hamas in Doha suggest a natural limit to Qatar’s role as an intermediary.
Israel attacked Hamas, apparently targeting its lead negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, in Doha, the capital of Qatar. This tactic is not endorsed in Getting to Yes or in any other guide to negotiation or international law. It is, however, consistent with the stated view of Israel’s leadership, which is that avowed members of a group engaged in ongoing acts of terror are valid targets wherever they happen to be. Israel demonstrated the sincerity of that last part—that it would strike wherever it wished—with its assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s then–political leader, in Tehran last year. Even after that, Hamas considered Qatar safe, because it is the site of the U.S.-backed negotiations over the war in Gaza, and as long as Israel’s closest ally was encouraging talks, Israel would need a living Hamas member to avoid a one-sided conversation. Hamas claims that its leaders in Qatar survived but that some lower-level figures, including al-Hayya’s son, did not. Israeli officials claim that they attacked Hamas in Doha with American consent. White House officials say that Donald Trump learned about the operation just this morning and directed his envoy Steve Witkoff to tip off the Qataris. The Qataris say that they took his call just as the explosions were under way.
Back in February, Trump said that if all of the Israeli hostages were not released within days, “all bets are off, and let hell break out.” (His threat raised the question of what, if not hell, he thought had broken out in Gaza since October 7, 2023.) Trump added that it was Israel’s choice whether to take advantage of its new latitude. Just this weekend, he suggested that Hamas’s negotiators mull a deal he had proposed to them, according to which all of the Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for a cease-fire and the release of many Palestinian prisoners. “I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,” he wrote on Truth Social. If Trump was in fact aware of the operation, this tactic—lie about whether negotiation is still ongoing—resembles the ruse that preceded America’s bombing of Iran in June, just days after Trump said he’d spend “two weeks” deciding whether to attack.
