Israeli military extends regional campaign with strike on Hamas in Qatar

Beirut – Israel announced that it had led on Tuesday “a precise target strike” on the management of Hamas, without developing on the site of the strike, while the explosions sounded in the Qatari Doha capital and the Qatari authorities condemned “the loose Israeli attack”.

The attack comes when Israel is accelerating for a complete invasion of Gaza City, even if negotiations in a standstill with Hamas officials in Doha seemed to have found a momentum after the weekend.

“The members of the management who were struck have led the activities of the terrorist organization for years and are directly responsible for the realization of the massacre of October 7 and the war against the State of Israel,” said a press release from the Israeli army.

The declaration referred to the date of 2023 when the activists led by Hamas killed 1,200 people – two thirds of them – and kidnapped 251 others in Gaza, according to Israeli personalities. More than 64,000 Palestinians, most civilians, according to the Palestinian authorities, were killed in the subsequent countryside of Israel on the enclave.

Videos and television shows have shown that black smoke rising from a series of buildings in the Katara district of Doha, a normally calm residential area where Hamas and several of its best members have lived for years. A video represents pedestrians in Katara that run and scream in fear while a pair of explosions resonates in the neighborhood.

Qatari security personnel have been seen in the area and install roadblocks.

Qatar has agreed to organize a political bureau for Hamas at the request of the United States government, he said. Hamas is one of the many groups it has authorized on its soil as part of its growing reputation as a regional facilitator. He organized repeated mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel in the last 23 months of the war.

An anonymous source of Hamas addressing the Qatari Al Jazeera diffuser said that the attack targeted the negotiator meeting to discuss the last cease-fire proposal published by President Trump. There were contradictory reports on the question of whether someone survived, but the meeting would have included senior officials from Hamas, Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mishaal, Zaher Jabarin and Muhammad Darwish.

In its declaration, the Israeli army said that “measures have been taken to mitigate civilians, in particular the use of precise ammunition and additional information.”

But the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatari, Majed Al-Ansari, in a furious statement published on the X messaging platform on Tuesday, describes the strike as “a criminal assault [that] constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and standards, and constitutes a serious threat to the security and security of Qataris and residents in Qatar. »»

“Although the state of Qatar firmly condemns this attack, it confirms that it will not tolerate this imprudent Israeli behavior and the continuous disruption of regional security, nor any act which targets its security and its sovereignty.”

The strike on Doha adds to a growing list of the Arab countries that Israel struck last month, stressing the most belligerent post-Oct of the Israeli government. 7 strategy against its longtime opponents in the region. Aside from its expanding campaign in Gaza, the Israeli army has led in recent weeks to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and now Doha.

The attack coincided with the fact that the Israeli soldiers issued an evacuation order encompassing the entire city of Gaza, the first time as it approaches its complete invasion of the largest urban center in the north of the eponymous enclave.

An anonymous official of the White House told the BBC that the Trump administration had been informed in advance of the Qatar strike, which shelters Al Udeid, the largest American base in the Middle East and the regional headquarters of the US central command. Some 10,000 American soldiers are stationed there.

An Israeli official, addressing the Israeli radiodiffuser Channel 12, said that President Trump had given the green light for the operation.

But Netanyahu published on Tuesday a statement saying: “Today’s action against Hamas’ best terrorist leaders was an entirely independent Israeli operation. Israel launched it, Israel led him and Israel assumes his responsibility, ”said the press release.