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!”
But after the strike, Trump’s tone was markedly different. He was, he insisted, “very unhappy about every aspect”. Whether or not he means this genuinely, he certainly needs to say it. Qatar is home to Al Udeid airbase, the largest US military facility in the region, and it’s central to America’s strategy in the Middle East. To allow Israel to bomb Qatar’s capital without clear condemnation is politically dangerous. On the other hand, neither can the White House afford to rupture ties with Israel, which gives Washington a strong foothold in the Middle East, and provides huge benefits in terms of access to military innovation and Israeli intelligence. Because of all this, Washington crouches awkwardly, half-ally, half-broker, trying to placate both sides while still playing mediator with Hamas.
For Hamas itself, the strike obviously is a big problem. As well as enjoying Doha’s hotels, prostitutes and offshore banking facilities, its leaders could also fundraise, spit propaganda, and participate in negotiations without any immediate threat of assassination. That’s over. And if they are not safe in Qatar, where are they safe?
The international response, meanwhile, has been swift and furious. UN Secretary General António Guterres called it a “flagrant breach” of international law, accusing Israel of deliberately undermining a diplomatic process in which Qatar had been playing a constructive role. Turkey went further, branding the attack “state terrorism”. Even Germany declared it “unacceptable”.
As for Qatar, Israel’s attack is almost personal. No wonder it denounced yesterday’s events as a “cowardly violation” of its sovereignty. Its role as mediator rested on a delicate balance: tolerated by the West, trusted by Hamas. Israel has just violated, if not ended, that neutrality. This is the new logic of escalation. The world is now a battleground; diplomacy cannot be used as a cover for impunity.
“The world is now a battleground”
And if yesterday’s attack cut to the heart of global diplomatic norms, the broader consequences could be severe. The Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Arab states, were already under strain thanks to the bloodbath in Gaza. Arab leaders who signed them must now explain to their people why they stand alongside a state willing to bomb a Gulf capital. That said, as Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum, observes, Qatar is not a participant in the Abraham Accords and indeed is an enemy of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in everything but name.
For Spyer, then, the logic here is clear. “Israel is at war with Hamas, because of the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis in 2023,” he says. “Hamas just claimed responsibility for a murderous terror attack in Jerusalem. Qatar domiciles the Hamas leadership and plays a double game — facilitating Hamas activities and then presenting itself as a mediator.” Given all this, Spyer adds, it’s unsurprising that Israel should have attacked Hamas’s Doha leaders once it had the necessary intelligence and military capacity.
Yet ceasefire negotiations, however flawed, were one of the few lifelines in a war that has already killed tens of thousands. By bombing Hamas leaders’ mid-discussion, Israel may hollow out the space for diplomacy. If, after all, mediators can no longer guarantee the safety of participants, then what mediator will host talks? And without talks, the war grinds on, with no end in sight.
Hamas will now seek to turn the dead into martyrs, brandishing them to the world as proof that Israel is the enemy of peace. For its part, Israel did not kill the men it sought. But it has made clear that it is prepared to carry its fight wherever it deems necessary, regardless of diplomatic conventions.
One of the clearest agents of change over the last decade has been the repeated erasure of political norms. In the West’s domestic politics, Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of populism have torn up so much of what we once thought was politically immutable. Similar trends are clear internationally too. When the Iranians first struck Israel directly, in April 2024, people scoffed at the lack of damage it did. But I did not: I knew that the norm of direct Iran-Israeli confrontation was shattered. More direct conflict would ensue and so it did. Last night, yet another international norm — you don’t touch the GCC — has vanished too.
Sometimes we move from one era to another in a single event: think of 9/11 or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Generally, though, we do so more gradually, as the political and ideological scaffolding that held it in place slowly disintegrates. That seems to be happening here, as we move from our “Long Age of Peace” to what increasingly looks like “An Age of War”.
From the Israeli perspective, anyway, the imperative is clear: to move beyond an era defined by relentless terror attacks and perpetual conflict toward something resembling security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has staked his legacy on a gamble: that overwhelming strength, and the repeated destruction of Israel’s enemies, can achieve what diplomacy with Hamas has not. Much of Western Europe, and the world’s international institutions, continue to insist that negotiations must be given space, that “de-escalation” is the only viable path. Israel, though, looks to its record of its hard-power gambles, from the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah to the extraordinary pagers operation, that have paid dividends both domestically and regionally.
Yesterday was yet one more gamble, perhaps Israel’s most dangerous so far. Now we will have to wait and see: if the international institutions and diplomatic norms of the postwar political settlement remain, or whether we are truly into a new epoch, in which to flourish, and indeed to win, states must now abide by an altogether new set of brutal political norms.
