The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) on Tuesday confirmed a stunning attempt to assassinate Hamas’s leadership in Doha, Qatar.
After two years of Qatar hosting negotiations between Israel and Hamas over hostage exchanges and ceasefires, the government reached the decision that killing the remaining Hamas leaders was more important than leaving that diplomatic channel open.
An IDF statement said that the leaders targeted were responsible for the October 7, 2023, massacre of around 1,200 Israelis in the country’s South, as well as managing the terror group’s operations for years before that.
Khalil al-Hayya, the leader of Hamas, was one of the key targets of the operation, an Israeli official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.
Other Israeli sources told the Post that senior Hamas officials were killed in the strike in Doha, estimating that there were between four and eight senior officials in Hayya’s secret apartment at the moment it was bombed.
At press time, there was still significant uncertainty as to who exactly was killed, though numerous reports said that Hayya’s son had been killed. There were numerous other contrary reports about the fate of other officials, such as Mohammed Darwish, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Zaher Jabarin.
A majority of reports indicated that former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal either was not present or had otherwise survived the attack. Overall, the security establishment was optimistic about the success of the attack, saying that the results looked good, but the specifics were still unclear.
Some reports said that the United States was told by Israel about the operation before the attack, while others state that it was told only after the attack was already underway.
The US Embassy in Doha has issued a shelter-in-place order for all US citizens.
“Hamas received the new proposal from the Qataris, which we [Israel] obtained from [US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve] Witkoff last week in Paris. The prime minister [of Qatar] met with the Hamas leadership yesterday, and they decided to meet again today to discuss the proposal arriving from Turkey,” a diplomatic source told the Post.
“As it happened before, the Israelis undermined hopes for peace, further prolonging the war and complicating efforts to bring back the hostages,” Qatar said in response to the attack.
Qatar strongly condemns ‘cowardly Israeli attack’
“The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the Political Bureau of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha,” said Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson of the Qatari Foreign Ministry.
“This criminal assault constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms and poses a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents in Qatar,” he added.
“While the state of Qatar strongly condemns this assault, it confirms that it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and the ongoing disruption of regional security, nor any act that targets its security and sovereignty.”
According to the military and the Shin Bet, special measures were taken to avoid harming anyone other than the top Hamas leaders, based on precise intelligence and munitions use. In fact, if multiple Hamas officials survived, it could be because a less powerful munition was used; had a larger munition been used, they might all have been killed, but collateral damage would likely have resulted.
The Post learned that the order to start serious preparations to carry out this operation was only given to the air force days ago. The final approval was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to Air Force Chief Tomer Bar.
In real-time, the operation was managed by Acting Shin Bet Chief “S,” who replaced Ronen Bar after Bar resigned in June over his role in the October 7 failures and over disputes with Netanyahu over “Qatargate.”
“For years, these members of the Hamas leadership have led the terrorist organization’s operations, are directly responsible for the brutal October 7 massacre, and have been orchestrating and managing the war against the State of Israel,” an IDF and Shin Bet statement read.
Until now, some of these Hamas officials have been viewed as too important and involved in negotiations to be targeted for assassination. Also, Qatar was viewed as too staunch an ally of the US – it hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East – to embarrass them with such an attack.
However, in July 2024, the Mossad assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran at a time when he was heavily involved in negotiations. In that case, the Biden administration accused Netanyahu of targeting Haniyeh partially to avoid a hostage deal, which he did not yet want at the time.
Netanyahu was defended by top Israeli defense officials who said that Haniyeh had been an obstacle to a deal and that, in any case, his responsibility for October 7 was too large to let him live.
It was unclear what position the Trump administration would take on the attack at a time when it is trying to press Israel and Hamas to reach a deal, and it was unclear who would remain Hamas’s top negotiator.
The attack was also unusual because it was carried out openly by the air force and the Shin Bet as opposed to the Mossad, which is normally responsible for out-of-Israel assassinations, such as with Haniyeh.
However, the Mossad has managed to maintain better relations with Qatar, such that a decision may have been made to keep them at a distance from this operation.
Various Israeli political officials leaked to the media that they expected the killing of some of these Hamas officials, who were intransigent in negotiations, to make it easier to reach a hostage deal. Yet, after past assassinations of top Hamas leaders, negotiations were usually frozen for weeks, if not months.