• Looking for a smarter way to manage your heating this winter? We’ve been testing the new Aqara Radiator Thermostat W600 to see how quiet, accurate and easy it is to use around the home. Click here read our review.

Operation 'Day of Judgement'

Hamas confirms leaders survived, six others killed in Israeli attack

In its first official statement after the strikes in Doha, Hamas says the Israeli attack aimed to scuttle the ceasefire and prisoner exchange talks.
The group also confirmed that its top leaders survived the assassination attempt while six others, including the son of its Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya and one of his aides, as well as a Qatari officer were killed.
“This once again reveals the criminal nature of the occupation and its desire to undermine any chances of reaching an agreement,” Hamas said.
 
Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan Zangauker, currently held captive in Gaza, says that she is “trembling with fear” in the wake of Israel’s attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha.

“Why does Netanyahu insist on sabotaging every opportunity to reach a deal?… My son’s life has been in real danger for 22 months… The prime minister is obstructing the deal again, and no deal is on the table,” she said in a video message posted on social media. “I am fed up. The people of Israel are fed up with this war.”
 

Hamas confirms leaders survived, six others killed in Israeli attack

In its first official statement after the strikes in Doha, Hamas says the Israeli attack aimed to scuttle the ceasefire and prisoner exchange talks.
The group also confirmed that its top leaders survived the assassination attempt while six others, including the son of its Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya and one of his aides, as well as a Qatari officer were killed.
“This once again reveals the criminal nature of the occupation and its desire to undermine any chances of reaching an agreement,” Hamas said.

Doesn't matter who was killed or not killed. The message sent was clear enough, and if they continue to **** about, there will be more to come. There's really only one way to deal with terrorists.



Qatar condemned a “cowardly” violation of its sovereignty. Reuters and others reported multiple blasts and smoke columns over the Katara district, while our newsroom confirmed that Khalil al-Hayya was among the intended targets, with his fate unclear at the time of writing.

The Israeli calculus is not subtle. If Hamas turned time into leverage in Qatar, Jerusalem is now trying to take that leverage away.

For months, Israeli negotiators have described the same scene in Doha: A question goes to the Hamas team, and then the clock starts. One veteran envoy told me that Osama Hamdan and his colleagues would “go quiet” on issues that could have been answered in a day, then reappear three, four, even seven days later with a partial reply that opened a new loop.

Another negotiator recalled entire weeks in which Jerusalem could not move to the next bracket because Hamas’s Doha office simply did not answer. The message to Israel, they believed, was deliberate. Time was a tactic.

Today, explosions in Doha hit what Israel says was Hamas’s senior political leadership, reportedly including figures tied directly to the ceasefire-for-hostages channel.
Throughout the summer, mediators cycled proposals that required simple yes-or-no answers on sequencing, such as lists, ratios, and timelines. Instead, responses from Hamas in Doha often arrived slowly or arrived conditional on new side demands. Israel, the US, Qatar, and Egypt were repeatedly “waiting for Hamas’s response,” as even public summaries noted.

In late July, Washington began signaling that it was exploring “alternative options” to bring hostages home if the Doha track stayed stuck. Jerusalem echoed that language, warning that if the last Israelis were not released, pressure would intensify. Today’s strike is what “alternative options” look like when diplomacy is treated as a delay loop.

From the Israeli and American vantage points, Hamas believed that time favored it, that global opinion and political pressure would keep Israel at the table indefinitely. That belief also fed a narrative war around aid. Israel has long claimed Hamas diverts or taxes assistance.

What matters for understanding today is not adjudicating every aid claim; it is grasping the Israeli conclusion: that the talks were being slow-rolled while the narrative battle raged, and that leverage had to change.

Why strike in Doha, of all places?

Qatar is not just a mediator. It hosts Al Udeid, the largest US air hub in the Middle East and the Combined Air Operations Center for CENTCOM. Hitting Hamas’s leadership in a capital so closely intertwined with US operations is a message to multiple audiences at once: to Hamas, that “safe” negotiating rear bases are now target sets; to Doha, that sheltering decision-makers carries costs; and to other mediators, that the window for incrementalism has closed. Qatar’s government has protested “in the strongest terms.” Whether it can continue as the primary venue after this shock remains to be seen.

What is known, and what is still murky

Concrete facts: Explosions struck Doha; Israel says Hamas leadership was the target; Qatar condemns a violation of sovereignty. Open questions: exactly who was hit and whether the core negotiating team was killed or scattered; whether Washington had foreknowledge or merely deconflicted airspace; and whether Doha will try to salvage its mediator role or step back.
Some outlets asserted US approval, but there is no official White House readout substantiating that claim at publication time.

Does this bring a deal closer or push it away

Two opposite dynamics are now in play.
Acceleration via shock. If the Doha cadre was the choke point, removing or rattling it could force faster, more binary decisions by any surviving leadership abroad. The US and Israel have spent weeks hinting that there were “other ways” to move the hostage file. This is one of them.

Freeze via decapitation. Killing negotiators can also kill negotiations. Hamas may harden demands or pause entirely while it reconstitutes. Qatar may curtail its role, and Egypt alone may not be able to carry a comprehensive framework.

Jerusalem is betting that the first effect dominates. The risk is that the second effect wins the week.

Hamas played for time in Doha. It treated each day as a bargaining chip, each delay as a way to increase outside pressure on Israel. With today’s strike, Israel is trying to make time work the other way. The coming days will show whether the shock compels decisions on a full release-for-ceasefire package, or whether it fractures the channel that, for all its flaws, was still the only channel left.
 
Just celebrate a great mission and show your support rather than throwing silly names.
You can support terrorists if you want...

Those with a bit more intelligence condemn the violence from wherever it comes from ;)
 
You can support terrorists if you want...

Those with a bit more intelligence condemn the violence from wherever it comes from ;)
As my first post, just celebrate the mission and stop trying to be intelligent. It really isn't you. Just celebrate.
 
lets hope they remain accurate when they start targeting the clowns waving hamas / palestine flags
glad no one near me has a hamas flag hanging from their window
 
By creating a load more nutters, far more widely spread than the current conflict?
The genocide supporters are incapable of understanding that violence begets violence...

It's been going on for decades and will carry on for decades to come...

But then there is a racial element to their thinking which in their warped minds means that they consider Palestinians to be untermensch.

History sadly insists on repeating itself!
 
Back
Top