David Patrikarakos
At around 4pm local time yesterday, Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a residential compound in Doha’s Leqtaifiya district. The operation, reportedly codenamed “Summit of Fire” and conducted by the IDF with possible involvement of Shin Bet, targeted several senior Hamas leaders, who had gathered to discuss a US-backed ceasefire proposal for Gaza. In the event, the officials survived, but six others were killed, including three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer.
It was the first time Israel has struck on Qatari soil, and, more than just shrapnel, its missiles carried two messages. The first is that Israel’s war with Hamas is now global. For decades, Hamas’s political bureau has operated from Qatar, tolerated by the United States, Europe, and indeed Israel, with Doha a useful channel for diplomacy. Hamas could plot, posture, and negotiate in five-star hotels while Israeli bombs flattened Gaza. The fiction was that these men, in their Gulf exile, could be treated differently from those directing the war on the ground.
By attacking Doha, Israel has made clear that this distinction is now a delusion. Yet, if anything, the second message is even more controversial. The men Israel tried to kill were reviewing Washington’s latest ceasefire proposal. By hitting them mid-discussion, it has therefore made the peace process itself a target. Israel has long raged at the diplomatic scaffolding that keeps Hamas at the table; the Doha strike is a challenge not just to Hamas but to the very architecture of mediation that has sustained the brief pauses in the Gaza war.
The strike could be a warning to get on with things, to accept the deal on offer. Let’s not forget that on 7 September, Donald Trump posted a clear warning on Truth Social: “The Israelis have accepted my Terms,” he said. “It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”
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