A way of urgency hung over the assembly.
The Qatari prime minister sat throughout from Hamas’ chief negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, below the maroon-and-white flag of the Gulf nation on Monday night. The two had met many occasions earlier than in talks that usually proved fruitless.
But this time was completely different.
The United States had simply put ahead a brand new ceasefire proposal that might finish the almost two-year struggle in Gaza. And Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani was pressuring Al-Hayya to simply accept.
The dialogue wrapped up shortly earlier than 9:30 in the night, in line with a supply aware of the assembly, however the actual work was simply starting. After Al-Hayya left, Qatari negotiators acquired on the telephone with their Israeli counterparts to replace them on the nascent ceasefire effort.
Unlike most proposals, which got here from Qatar and Egypt – the two key mediators capable of converse with the US, Israel, and Hamas – this plan got here straight from the Trump administration. Qatari negotiators had met with US envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris final week, and President Donald Trump wished to see progress.
On Sunday, Trump issued what he described as his “last warning” to Hamas to simply accept the deal. He prematurely claimed Israel had accepted the proposal, although Israeli officers had solely mentioned they have been “seriously considering” it.
It fell on Qatar to show the proposal into an settlement.
The name between the Qatari and Israeli negotiating groups lasted till 5:00 in the morning. Hamas had promised to reply to Qatari negotiators 12 hours later.
Israel had different plans.
Before time was up, Israeli missiles slammed right into a residential constructing in Doha during which Israeli intelligence believed Hamas’ senior leaders had gathered.
NCS spoke with greater than a dozen officers and sources in Israel, Qatar and the US to piece collectively a timeline of the essential moments round an operation that might nicely reshape the area. In a single assault, US credibility throughout the Middle East was placed on the line. Qatar and its neighbors have been outraged, the US was shocked, and Israel was unapologetic.
Timeline of Israel’s operation to kill Hamas leaders in Qatar
For greater than two months, Israel had been planning a military operation that was each daring and brazen: a strike in opposition to senior Hamas leaders in Doha. The metropolis had develop into an important hub for talks to free the hostages and finish the struggle – and one regularly visited by prime Israeli officers.
Soon after the October 7, 2023, assaults, Israel made clear that it might goal Hamas’ management in Gaza and overseas. International borders have been no safety for the militant group. But these assaults and operations have been solely carried out in enemy states, equivalent to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and of Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon.
A strike in Qatar can be an assault in opposition to a sovereign nation that has performed an important mediating function in ceasefire talks and hosts an enormous US navy presence. Qatar was additionally dwelling to Hamas’ senior leaders, together with Khalil Al-Hayya. The group’s chief negotiator had lived in Doha for years.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s relationship with the US has steadily grown. The Pentagon has employed Al-Udeid Air Base as its largest facility in the area for greater than 20 years. In 2022, former President Joe Biden declared the Gulf state a significant non-NATO ally. Last yr, US and Qatari sources instructed NCS that the nation had agreed to kick Hamas leaders out, however little got here of the promise, with a number of of the group’s leaders remaining in Doha.
In May, Trump grew to become the first sitting US president to go to the Gulf state, promising Qatar that “we are going to protect this country.” Doha pledged a $1.2 trillion financial dedication to the US on Trump’s brief keep in the nation and gifted his government a jumbo jet to make use of as Air Force One.
Israel has its personal advanced relationship with Qatar. The two Middle East nations shouldn’t have formal ties, however for years, officers have traveled again and forth usually. Qatar established low-level diplomatic relations with Israel in 1996 however closed the Israeli commerce workplace in Doha in 2000. Relations grew markedly in 2018, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised the switch of lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} from Qatar to Gaza. The cash, carried in suitcases of money throughout frequent visits by Doha’s envoy to the Hamas-ruled territory, was meant for civil servant salaries, households in want, and utilities.
But the relations have deteriorated considerably since the begin of the struggle in Gaza, with Israeli officers voicing rising anger at Qatar, accusing the authorities of harboring Hamas and not placing sufficient stress on it to comply with a ceasefire.
The Israeli authorities concluded that placing in Qatar was value the threat. In latest weeks, it accelerated planning for the advanced, long-range mission. As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pressed forward with its assault on Gaza City, the Israeli Air Force ready for what can be the first-ever Israeli strike on a Gulf Arab nation.
It got here right down to a query of when.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Mossad chief David Barnea, who had been an everyday in Doha over the previous two years, questioned the timing of the operation, which might come simply days after the US put ahead its new ceasefire proposal.
But not too long ago, the two have been sidelined on a few of Israel’s key safety choices as Netanyahu prioritizes the calls for of his far-right coalition companions.
Zamir had opposed the authorities’s plan to take over and occupy Gaza City, warning that it might put troopers and the remaining 48 hostages in danger. His issues have been brushed apart. In February, Barnea was changed as the head of Israel’s negotiating team by Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer.
Now Netanyahu was as soon as once more pushing ahead over the reservations of two of his prime safety officers.
The operation acquired preliminary approval on Monday, in line with an Israeli official. The Shin Bet, Israel’s inner safety company – which has the main duty for monitoring Hamas, had intelligence that senior Hamas officers have been convening in Doha to debate the actual proposal the US was advancing. It’s unclear if it was the similar assembly during which the Qatari prime minister pressed Hamas to simply accept the deal.
The key target was Al-Hayya. Israel delayed the operation by a day to agency up identification. Final approval got here simply hours earlier than the strike.
On Tuesday afternoon, more than 10 Israeli fighter jets launched into the skies over the Middle East to hold out the assault. The IDF has not publicly acknowledged what plane or weapons have been utilized in the operation, however Israel’s F-35I, F-15 and F-16 fighter jets have been used extensively throughout the 12-day battle with Iran, an identical distance to an operation in Qatar. The jets, obtained from the United States, had confirmed their mettle, working in an surroundings saturated with enemy radars.
Only now, they have been American radars scanning the skies.
The US maintains an enormous navy presence at Al-Udeid Air Base simply exterior Doha. The sprawling facility is the nucleus for a lot of the US Air Force’s operations in the Middle East, and US Central Command, which governs American operations in the area, would view any unidentified incoming plane as a possible menace. Qatar additionally boasts considered one of the most advanced early warning radar systems in the area, coupled with Patriot air protection missile system.
Israel needed to inform the US with out jeopardizing the operation. Too a lot advance warning would give the Trump administration time to inform Qatar, which might in flip inform Hamas of the impending strike.
As Israeli fighter jets lower throughout the skies to their goal, Netanyahu hunkered down in the Shin Bet’s Special Operations Command Center in central Israel. In an image launched by the Shin Bet, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Netanyahu’s chief of employees are seen peering over his shoulders.
At 3:46 in the afternoon, greater than 10 munitions struck a residential constructing in central Doha in what the IDF referred to as a “precise strike.”
Israel deliberately waited till the final minute to inform the Trump administration about the strike, understanding the US would instantly inform Qatar about the incoming assault. But it’s unclear precisely how the notification proceeded.
Instead of a direct name between the two leaders – which might not have been out of the unusual between Netanyahu and Trump – the essential discover about an unprecedented assault on a key US ally took a circuitous route.
The prime US common, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, instructed Trump about the operation. Trump knowledgeable US envoy Steve Witkoff, who then notified the Qataris.
By the time the Qataris acquired the name, the strike had already taken place 10 minutes earlier.
Israel was fast to take full duty for the assault in an try and distance the US from the mission. Netanyahu mentioned that it was a “wholly independent Israeli operation.” The assertion was made at the request of the US.
Qatar’s prime minister, who had pressed Hamas to simply accept the proposal a day earlier, was livid, calling the assault “state terrorism.”
In an unique interview with NCS, Al-Thani mentioned, “If we look at the pattern of Netanyahu’s actions since October 7, since the war started, it’s been in a very systematic way trying to undermine any chance of stability, any chance of peace, and any chance of retrieving his own hostages.”
For Israel, the larger drawback was the US. Trump mentioned he was “very unhappy about every aspect” of the strike. Some of Trump’s advisers have been offended about the resolution to hold out the assault, and many have been annoyed that they weren’t capable of weigh in or warn the Qataris.
In the hours after the strike, Netanyahu talked to Trump on two separate telephone calls. “The conversations were very good,” one Israeli official mentioned.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t condemn the concentrating on of Hamas leaders overseas, whilst she criticized the operation.
“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,” Leavitt mentioned on Tuesday.
Israel portrayed the assault as a step that might deliver the finish of the struggle nearer, the similar declare it made after killing Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and his youthful brother Mohammed Sinwar in Gaza. Yet the battle is now lower than a month from its two-year mark. Between US frustration and Qatar saying that Netanyahu “killed any hope for those hostages,” the negotiations effort out of the blue has no clear method ahead.
But for now, Israel has one other main drawback.
Hamas mentioned on Tuesday night time that Israel did not assassinate Al-Hayya and the negotiations delegation. Instead, 5 lower-level Hamas members have been killed in the strike, in addition to a Qatari safety guard.
By Wednesday morning, doubts have been rising in Israel about the success of the operation. Within hours, the doubts had grown into pessimism.
The strike was not so exact in spite of everything.