{"id":6292,"date":"2025-09-10T01:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/6292\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T01:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:17:13","slug":"israeli-strike-targets-hamas-leaders-in-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/6292\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli strike targets Hamas leaders in Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

DOHA, Qatar (AP) \u2014 Israel struck the headquarters of Hamas\u2019 political leadership in Qatar on Tuesday as the group\u2019s top figures gathered to consider a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip<\/a>. The strike on the territory of a U.S. ally marked a stunning escalation and risked upending talks aimed at winding down the war<\/a> and freeing hostages. <\/p>\n

The attack angered Qatar, an energy-rich Gulf nation hosting thousands of American troops that has served as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas throughout the 23-month-old war and even before. It condemned what it referred to as a \u201cflagrant violation of all international laws and norms\u201d as smoke rose over its capital, Doha. Other key U.S. allies in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, promised their support to Qatar. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This is a locator map for the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n

This is a locator map for the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

Hamas said in a statement its top leaders survived the strike but that five lower-level members were killed, including the son of Khalil al-Hayya \u2014 Hamas\u2019 leader for Gaza and its top negotiator \u2014 three bodyguards, and the head of al-Hayya\u2019s office. Hamas, which has sometimes only confirmed the assassination of its leaders months later, offered no immediate proof that al-Hayya and other senior figures had survived. <\/p>\n

The United States said Israel alerted it before the strike. But American officials sought to distance the U.S. from the attack. The White House said President Donald Trump believes the strike was an \u201cunfortunate incident\u201d that didn\u2019t advance peace in the region. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and \u201cmade his thoughts and concerns very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also told reporters that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff passed along a warning to the Qataris. But Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari derided the warning, saying in a post on X that it came just as \u201cthe explosions from the Israeli strikes were being heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qatar\u2019s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, lashed out at Netanyahu for \u201cdragging the region to a place where it unfortunately cannot be repaired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked at a news conference if cease-fire talks would continue, Sheikh Mohammed said that after the strike, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything valid\u201d in the current talks. But he stopped short of saying Qatar would end its mediation efforts, saying \u201cwe will do whatever we can to stop this war.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of Qatar\u2019s Internal Security Force was also killed by the Israeli strike and others were wounded, Qatar\u2019s Interior Ministry said.<\/p>\n

Hamas has survived numerous assassinations of top leaders and still shows cohesion in Gaza, despite having suffered major blows in Israel\u2019s campaign, triggered by the militant group\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. <\/p>\n

As the strike in Qatar threatens to derail ceasefire talks<\/a>, Israel is gearing up for a major offensive aimed at taking over Gaza City<\/a>. That escalation has been met with heavy international condemnation and opposition within Israel from those who fear it will doom the remaining hostages. <\/p>\n

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday at the request of elected council members Algeria, Pakistan and Somalia.<\/p>\n

Israel had long threatened Hamas in Qatar<\/p>\n

Surveillance footage aired by Al Jazeera showed the strike happened in Doha\u2019s diplomatic quarter at a series of buildings that housed Hamas\u2019 political wing. An Egyptian official said the strike came when a meeting by Hamas officials over the talks had been scheduled for the site. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn\u2019t authorized to talk to reporters.<\/p>\n

Israel has long threatened to strike Hamas leaders wherever they are. While it has often welcomed Qatar\u2019s role as a mediator, alongside Egypt, it has also accused the Gulf nation of not putting enough pressure on the group.<\/p>\n

In contrast to previous Israeli operations against senior militants abroad<\/a>, Netanyahu was quick to publicly claim the strike, saying: \u201cIsrael initiated it, Israel conducted it and Israel takes full responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the decision was made Monday after a shooting attack in Jerusalem<\/a> that killed six people and an attack on Israeli forces in Gaza that killed four soldiers.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military said it used \u201cprecise munitions and additional intelligence\u201d in the strike, without elaborating. It was not immediately clear how it carried out the attack.<\/p>\n

Hamas said the attack showed that Netanyahu and his government \u201cdo not want to reach any agreement and are deliberately seeking to thwart all opportunities.\u201d It said it also held the United States responsible for the strike. <\/p>\n

Egypt, another key mediator with Hamas, also condemned the attack, saying it targeted Palestinian leaders who had met \u201cto discuss ways to reach a ceasefire agreement.\u201d It said the strike was a \u201cdirect assault\u201d on Qatar\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n

In Israel, the main group representing families of the hostages expressed \u201cdeep concern and great fear\u201d after the strike. \u201cThe prospect of their return now faces greater uncertainty than ever, with one thing absolutely certain \u2014 their time is running out,\u201d the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Ceasefire negotiations in doubt<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Trump said he was giving his \u201clast warning\u201d to Hamas regarding a possible ceasefire<\/a>, as the U.S. advanced a new proposal that Arab officials said included the immediate release of all the hostages.<\/p>\n

A senior Hamas official called it a \u201chumiliating surrender document,\u201d but the militant group said it would discuss the proposal and respond within days.<\/p>\n

The proposal, presented by Witkoff, calls for a negotiated end of the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza once the hostages are released and a ceasefire is established. That\u2019s according to Egyptian and Hamas officials familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.<\/p>\n

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 48 hostages<\/a>, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu has rejected those terms, saying the war will continue until all the hostages are returned and Hamas has been disarmed, with Israel maintaining open-ended security control over Gaza.<\/p>\n

Mediators had previously focused on brokering a temporary ceasefire and the release of some hostages, with the two sides then holding talks on a more permanent truce. Witkoff walked away from those talks in July, after which Hamas accepted a proposal<\/a> that mediators said was almost identical to an earlier one that Israel had approved.<\/p>\n

International outrage<\/p>\n

The war in Gaza has already left Israel increasingly isolated internationally<\/a>, with even many of its Western allies calling for it to end the war and do more to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, parts of which are experiencing famine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates\u2019 foreign minister, expressed \u201cfull solidarity with our dear Qatar\u201d shortly after the attack. <\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates recently warned Israel<\/a> that any move to annex the occupied West Bank would threaten the Abraham Accords, a landmark agreement brokered by Trump during his first term in which the two nations normalized relations.<\/p>\n

Trump hopes to expand those accords to include regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, but those prospects have dimmed as the war has ground on.<\/p>\n

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described the strike as a \u201ccriminal act and a flagrant violation of international law\u201d in a phone call with Qatar\u2019s ruler.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, and Aamer Madhani, Darlene Superville and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, contributed.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s war coverage at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/israel-hamas-war<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOHA, Qatar (AP) \u2014 Israel struck the headquarters of Hamas\u2019 political leadership in Qatar on Tuesday as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[120,7317,49,114,54,69,122,51,1983,85,119,46,1984,61,7315,7314,47,2034,7318,7316,43,1823,7319,7313,121,126],"class_list":["post-6292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","tag-abdullah-bin-zayed-al-nahyan","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-gaza-strip","tag-general-news","tag-hamas","tag-hostage-situations","tag-il","tag-international-agreements","tag-israel","tag-israel-government","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-karoline-leavitt","tag-khalil-al-haya","tag-middle-east","tag-mideast-wars","tag-mohammad-bin-salman-bin-abdulaziz-al-saud","tag-mohammed-bin-rashid-al-maktoum","tag-news","tag-qatar","tag-religion","tag-steve-witkoff","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}