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12-09-2025
JERUSALEM/ DOHA: Israel had no intention of covering up its involvement in Tuesday’s attack on Doha within minutes of the explosions being heard in the Qatari capital, Israeli officials were claiming responsibility in the media and not long after, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly took responsibility for the attack on several Hamas leaders.
“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility,” the statement said.
The attack marks yet another escalation by Israel, the latest in a series that has included launching a war against Iran, occupying more land in Syria, killing the leadership of the Lebanese group Hezbollah and the killing of more than 64,500 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since its war there began but this attack marks a new frontier in what Israel believes it can get away with: a direct attack on a United States ally, Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the region that has been leading negotiations to secure a ceasefire deal and release Israeli captives from Gaza.
“We’ve seen that Israel fires in crowded and residential areas and in capitals across the Middle East as it pleases,” Mairav Zonszein, the International Crisis Group’s Senior Israel Analyst, told media “and it continues to do so, and will continue to do so, (if no one) takes serious action to stop it.”
The attack took many by surprise because it went beyond what Palestinian defence analyst Hamze Attar called, “traditional Mossad (Israeli intelligence) work”, such as assassinations through car bombs, poison, or gun or sniper attacks.
“I don’t think … the Qataris expected that Israel would bomb Doha,” he said.
Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that Israel’s previous attacks around the world meant “the Qataris knew that they were not completely off limits, but obviously no one anticipated a direct attack, and just the defiance and unhinged recklessness of it surprised, I would say, everyone”.
Israel has so far received little pushback for its actions from the US, both under current President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. In the first comments from the White House on the attack, a statement from Trump said that while the US had been informed of the attack, Israel had carried out the attack unilaterally. The statement added that the attack did not advance Israeli or American goals but that hitting Hamas was a “worthy goal”.
“I don’t think, analytically speaking, that Israel would carry out any such attack without an American green light,” said senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “If America indeed did not give a green light, we should be hearing a condemnation coming any minute … The Trump administration needs to condemn this behavior by its client, Israel, while (ceasefire) negotiations are going on.”
Those ceasefire negotiations are discussing a deal that Trump has pushed for himself, but with the caveat that the US president has taken to issuing his own threats towards Hamas and Gaza should a deal not be reached.
That has implied that the Palestinian group has been the main barrier to a deal, but in reality, Hamas has agreed to past ceasefire proposals, only to find Israel rejects deals it has previously agreed to, or changes the parameters of the negotiations.
The Trump administration previously pushed for a deal that would include the partial release of Israeli captives and a temporary pause in the fighting during which negotiations for a permanent end to the war would continue but Israel rejected that after initially supporting it, and the current deal being proposed calls for Hamas to release all captives, but only gets a temporary pause in the fighting in return.
Coupled with Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza City, where it has demanded all Palestinians leave, and its insistence that Hamas be destroyed. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
