How precision missiles put a bloody end to Gaza peace talks

The Israeli defence minister had Doha’s gleaming hotels and the Hamas leadership on his mind on Monday morning when he hinted that something extraordinary was afoot.

“Today, a powerful hurricane will strike the skies of Gaza City and the roofs of the terror towers,” Israel Katz said.

“This is a final warning to the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza and in luxury hotels abroad: release the hostages and lay down your weapons – or Gaza will be destroyed and you will be annihilated.”

A little over 24 hours later, several precision-guided Israeli missiles slammed into a squat sand-coloured building in the northern coastal area of Doha, the Qatari capital, where several embassies are located.

Israel had struck at the heart of the Hamas leadership as they discussed the latest offer of a peace deal for Gaza.

Qatari and Israeli sources say they were formulating a response to a proposal by US President Donald Trump, released on Sunday night, that included the release of all hostages.

The Hamas officials who had gathered there in the heat of Tuesday afternoon had done so at the forbearance of the United States and Qatar.

Over the past five or six years, Qatar has become something akin to a Switzerland of the Middle East, albeit one with vast US military assets based there.

It is where the Taliban leadership gathered to make a deal allowing the exit of US troops from Afghanistan in Trump’s first term as president in February 2020. In short, it is supposed to be neutral territory.

It is also where many of the Hamas leaders cheered on the October 7 massacres in relative luxury, many kilometres from Gaza.

The terms of the peace proposal they were discussing on Tuesday were agreed by Israel, and there would be consequences if Hamas failed to respond in kind, Trump said.

“I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday evening.

The Israeli plan would put a bloody end to talks. If, that is, the targets were eliminated.

According to Hamas, just five of its number were killed in the strike. It said key leaders had escaped. Israel, it claimed, had failed in its bid to take out its entire negotiating team.

Although pictures from the scene show substantial damage to the building, it was not destroyed.

Among the dead, Hamas said, were Himam al-Hayya, the son of Hamas’ leader in Gaza, the office director of Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’ chief negotiator, and three “associates” – apparently bodyguards or advisers.

The property was later described by Qatari officials as the residential headquarters of Hamas in Qatar – a place where the organisation’s political leadership lived and worked when in the Middle Eastern country.

The missiles used to hit the building were not, it seems, surgical weapons designed to take out a single room, say, nor were they bunker-busting weight munitions.

Britain’sTelegraph understands that the operation was directed from Shin Bet’s special operations headquarters in central Israel. It is reported to have involved 15 Israeli fighter jets carrying at least 10 munitions.

Images released by Israel show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others overseeing the operation in real time.

Early reports said al-Hayya, the leader and top negotiator, had been killed in the Israeli strike, but it was later suggested he had survived.

The Qataris were furious about the attack, describing it as a cowardly and “flagrant violation to all international law”.

The Qatari interior ministry confirmed that one member of its internal security forces was killed and several others injured.

It also stated about 9.35pm on Tuesday evening (Wednesday AEST) that it continued to secure the area.

A key question about the attack that has yet to be settled is how much the US knew of it and when.

Netanyahu was quick to say that he and his security cabinet had acted alone. In a statement issued soon after the missiles landed, he said: “Today’s action against the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas was a wholly independent Israeli operation.

“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.”

Israel’s Channel 12 initially said the US had been notified “right before” the Israeli strike but then said notification came only “when the missiles have been launched”. The Trump administration did not therefore “have a possibility to weigh in”, it added.

The White House said only that Trump was made aware of the strike before it happened. However, the president also said on Tuesday evening that “unilaterally bombing Qatar does not advance US or Israeli’s goals”.

Hint of US involvement

A possible hint of US involvement – or at least a lack of its active deterrence – is that Qatar is home to US Central Command (Centcom), a massive military presence responsible for defending US interests across the Middle East and Central and South Asia.

The US-run Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, which serves as Centcom’s forward operating headquarters, is bristling not just with offence weaponry but some of the most sophisticated air defence systems.

It played a leading role, with the help of British, French and other allied forces, in defending Israel against the three separate missile and drone barrages it has faced from Iran over the past 17 months, starting in April 2024.

When the Israeli strike hit Doha on Tuesday, a British military refuelling aircraft was, coincidentally, heading towards the Centcom base.

Britain, France, and Spain – all members of the broader Centcom coalition – condemned Israel’s strikes on Doha as violations of international law and called for de-escalation in the region.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the strikes “violate Qatar’s sovereignty and risk further escalation across the region”. He urged “an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and a huge surge in aid into Gaza”.

Diplomatic damage

At the time of writing, the extent to which Hamas has been dismantled is unclear, as is the diplomatic damage that has been done to the US and Israel in the wider region.

One thing does seem clear, however: a claim from Katz that the strike was sparked by Monday’s attack by Palestinian gunmen on a Jerusalem bus, killing six, is an oversimplification – Israeli sources say it had been planned for months.

Ever since the pager attack in Lebanon in September last year, which took out many of Hezbollah’s leadership strata, it has been clear that no one at the top of a terrorist group fighting Israel is safe.

“Yesterday, after the murderous attacks in Jerusalem and Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu directed all security elements to prepare for the possibility of striking the Hamas leadership,” Katz said on Tuesday evening. “The defence minister fully supported this initiative.

“This afternoon, in light of an operational opportunity, and in consultation with all security establishment heads, and with full backing, the prime minister and the defence minister decided to implement the directive that was given last night to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] and the ISA [Israeli Security Agency], which did so with precision and in an optimal manner.”

The Hamas targets were at least going through the motions of assessing Trump’s peace deal when the attack happened. They did not immediately accept the pact but said they were willing to engage with it and talk through the details.

On Sunday evening, they had put out a statement saying Hamas had “received through the mediators some ideas from the American side aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement” and that it welcomed the initiative.

“The movement is in constant contact with the intermediaries to develop these ideas into a comprehensive agreement that meets the needs of our people,” it added.

On Monday, apparently following through on that statement, al-Hayya, the chief negotiator, met Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim to discuss Trump’s proposal.

The sheikh is a contender for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in trying to negotiate an end to the Gaza conflict – and so, of course, is Trump.

The Telegraph, London

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