Israeli strike targets Hamas leadership in Qatar; Hamas says 6 killed but leaders survived

Highlights:

• Explosions heard in Qatari capital
• Hamas leadership targeted, say Israeli officials
• Hamas claims leadership survived strike
• Qatar condemns strike as violation of international law
• Qatar says reports it was alerted before attack are wrong
• White House says attacks advance neither Israel nor US interests

Israel launched an airstrike against Hamas leaders in Qatar on Tuesday (9 September), expanding its military actions that have ranged across the Middle East to include the Gulf Arab state where the Palestinian Islamist group has long had its political base.

Qatar, which has acted as a mediator alongside Egypt in talks on a ceasefire in the almost two-year-old war in Gaza, condemned the attack as "cowardly" and called it a flagrant violation of international law.

Hamas said five of its members had been killed in the attack in Doha, including the son of Hamas's exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator Khalil al-Hayya. The sixth person killed, it said, was a member of Qatar's internal security forces.

It also said Israel had failed in what Hamas called an attempt to assassinate the group's ceasefire negotiation team.

Earlier, Hamas political bureau member Suhail al-Hindi told Al Jazeera TV that the group's top leadership had survived the Israeli attack.

Two Hamas sources told Reuters that Hamas officials in the ceasefire negotiating team survived the attack, which followed an evacuation order in Gaza City, where Israel is waging an offensive to try to destroy the group and its military capabilities in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials told Reuters the strike was aimed at top Hamas leaders including Khalil al-Hayya, its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator.

The attack took place shortly after Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed six people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday.

The assault is likely to deal a serious, if not fatal, blow to efforts to reach a ceasefire, especially since negotiations took place in the Gulf Arab country Qatar.

Qatar is a key security partner of the United States and host to al-Udeid Air Base, the largest US military facility in the Middle East.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said hitting Hamas was a worthy goal, but the United States felt badly about the location of the attack.

Leavitt told a briefing that the Trump administration was notified by the Pentagon that Israel was attacking Hamas in Qatar "just before" and President Donald Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it. Leavitt also said the US military was notified "just before the attack", but did not respond when asked by whom.

"The Trump administration was notified by the United States military that Israel was attacking Hamas, which very unfortunately, was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar," Leavitt told the White House briefing.

"Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar - a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard in bravely taking risks with us to broker peace - does not advance Israel or America's goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal."

Meanwhile, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said reports about being informed of the Israeli attack on Doha beforehand are false.

A call received from a US official came when sounds of explosions were heard in Doha, Qatar said.

The United Arab Emirates, which normalised relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords in 2020, called the Israeli attack on Doha "blatant and cowardly".

Abu Dhabi was already angry over an Israeli minister's plan for annexation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, saying that was a red line that cannot be crossed.

Regional power Saudi Arabia denounced what it called a "brutal Israeli aggression" against Qatar's sovereignty.

Ambulances gather around attack site

The Israeli military, meanwhile, issued evacuation orders for residents of Gaza City, causing panic and confusion, after Israel said it was about to obliterate the area in an assault to wipe out Hamas.

Residents of Gaza's biggest urban area, home to a million Palestinians before the war, have been expecting an onslaught for weeks, since the Israeli government devised a plan to deal Hamas a fatal blow in what it says are the group's last strongholds.

Anxiety was spreading through a tent area in Gaza City housing displaced cancer patients.

"There's no place left, not in the south, nor the north, nothing. We've become completely trapped," said Bajess al-Khaldi, a displaced cancer patients, as people looked on at the rubble of several buildings destroyed in an Israeli attack.

Several blasts were heard in Qatar's Doha, Reuters witnesses said. Plumes of black smoke were billowing from the city's Legtifya petrol station. Next door to the petrol station is a small residential compound that has been guarded by Qatar's Emiri Guard 24 hours a day since the beginning of the Gaza conflict.

Ambulances and at least 15 police and unmarked government cars thronged the streets around the blast site an hour after the strike.

Israel has killed several top Hamas leaders since the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel has also launched airstrikes and other military action in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen in the course of the Gaza conflict.

In Lebanon, it attacked the heavily armed Iran-backed group Hezbollah and in Yemen it launched airstrikes on the Iran-aligned Houthi group. Both groups have launched strikes on Israel during the Gaza conflict.