Explosion heard in Qatar's capital as Israel says it targets Hamas leadership in Doha

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00:00Now, back to that developing story in coming out of Doha.

00:05Israel's military has just confirmed that it targeted Hamas leaders in Doha about half an hour ago.

00:13There are reports coming through of a series of explosions in the Qatara district in the Qatari capital.

00:19Of course, the important thing is Hamas's exile leadership has long been based in Qatar,

00:25which has served as a mediator in talks between the Israelis and Hamas for a number of years,

00:33even before the latest war began in 2023.

00:41Now, for more on this breaking news story, let's cross now to Noga Tanaposky in Jerusalem.

00:45Noga, the army has just been briefing journalists. What have they been telling people?

00:50Well, first of all, and remarkably, the IDF briefed Israeli military and diplomatic correspondence

01:00that this, in fact, is 100 percent an Israeli operation and that it was aimed at decapitating Hamas.

01:08Hamas has long been divided into what we've traditionally called the military leadership,

01:15those on the ground in Gaza, those handling operations, terror attacks against Israel,

01:22and the political leadership that seemed to be immune from the Israeli reach,

01:28at least for the last 20 years or so, and that have been hosted in Doha.

01:33There's a very, very famous video of Hamas's leadership prostrated in prayer and gratitude

01:40on October 7th, 2023, in a plush Doha salon.

01:47So they have been there a very long time, and the Qataris, asked to explain this, you know,

01:54since the war began, have said that they agreed to host this terror group,

02:00basically to do a favor to the United States and Israel,

02:03that it was easier for the U.S. and Israel to monitor Hamas leadership

02:08if they were in a known quantity like Qatar.

02:11So they described this not so much as support, though Qataris financially supported Hamas,

02:17but as a favor being done to Western allies.

02:20Of course, we should add, it's just come through that the Israelis are saying

02:25that the United States was advised ahead of time.

02:29That's the formulation, and it's important because the U.S.

02:34has one of its largest military bases anywhere in Qatar.

02:38We're also hearing, of course, this is a developing story, Noga, you're in Jerusalem,

02:43that's, it's happening in Doha, but we're also hearing from Al Jazeera sources

02:48that the Hamas leadership were meeting at the time to discuss negotiations about Gaza.

02:53Do you have any further information from the IDF about who exactly they were targeting?

03:02I don't have any names from the IDF.

03:06I can tell you, as you say, it's a breaking story.

03:08I can tell you that a Saudi channel just announced that Khalil al-Khaya,

03:15who was the top Hamas negotiator during all of this, almost two years now,

03:20of ceasefire negotiations and hostage-for-prisoner negotiations.

03:25A Saudi channel confirms that he was killed, but we have no confirmation from the IDF.

03:31I mean, this could not be a more delicate moment.

03:36The president of the United States just proposed a ceasefire deal,

03:40which would have freed all of Israel's hostages on day one

03:44and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and then led to negotiations

03:49for an agreed-upon settlement for the end of the war in Gaza.

03:54This strike does seem to indicate that Israel has chosen a completely different path,

04:01not a negotiated settlement.

04:04And in Israel, one of the first reactions, as you can imagine,

04:08is the interpretation that this means that the Israeli government

04:13officially has abandoned and given up on the hostages.

04:17The assumption is that the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza

04:21are unlikely to survive this event.

04:24Again, we're in the early hours of this story,

04:27but just give us a sense of how the Israeli public

04:31is going to react to this development,

04:33in particular those families of the hostages who are still in Gaza.

04:42I expect that across the board there will be a complicated reaction.

04:47I think that for the families of the hostages,

04:49the reaction will be horror.

04:51I haven't had the chance in the last half hour

04:53to speak with any families of hostages,

04:56but I believe I know them well enough.

04:58They have spent the last few months begging,

05:00begging Israel not to engage in any military operation

05:05that could endanger their loved ones.

05:08In most cases, their children.

05:09In some cases, their husbands.

05:11I believe that they will consider this exactly that,

05:15a military operation that knowingly,

05:19intentionally endangers the lives of hostages.

05:22Einav Tsangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Tsangauker,

05:26I now assume that having a feeling that maybe something like this was coming,

05:31last weekend said openly at the protest in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv,

05:38that if her son returns in a body bag,

05:40she personally will see to it that Prime Minister Netanyahu is charged with murder.

05:46That's a quote from her.

05:48So I think from the families of hostages and from the majority of Israelis

05:54who are very identified with the plight of these families,

05:58I think the reaction is going to be perhaps not as positive as the Israeli government would like

06:04and one of horror in certain sectors.

06:06But I do want to add,

06:08the question of why Israel never attacked Qatar during this war

06:11has been in the air for a very long time,

06:13including right-wing military, former military personnel

06:19who were asking from the start, from October 7th,

06:23why doesn't Israel bombard Qatar?

06:26They have been supporting this, they have been funding this,

06:29they have been holding this.

06:30Just last week, I spoke with one of these right-wing identified people

06:36who said that the big mistake in mishandling the war, in his opinion,

06:41is that Israel didn't bomb Qatar.

06:42I am not sure that this timing is what anybody wanted in Israel.

06:48So again, I expect the reaction to be complex and tinged with great fear,

06:54but the question of an operation such as this has existed since October 7th.

07:00No, good to stay with us.

07:01And for those of you who are just tuning in,

07:04we have a breaking story where Israel has confirmed

07:08that it's carried out a series of targeted attacks

07:11on the Hamas leadership based in Qatar.

07:16Noga, coming back to this sort of very complicated relationship

07:21that Hamas has with its Qatari hosts,

07:25I mean, Hamas officials have been in exile in Doha

07:28for quite some time, haven't they?

07:34Yes, absolutely, for almost, I would say, 16, 17 years.

07:39Almost since the moment that Hamas perpetrated a coup d'etat in Gaza in 2007,

07:49its leadership was split into the military leadership leading operations against Israel from Gaza.

08:00These are all of the rockets launched, all of the missiles launched,

08:04and terror attacks planned in Gaza and planned in the West Bank.

08:08That was considered the military leadership, the military branch of Hamas.

08:13And sort of immune from Israel was the political leadership in Doha, by and large in Doha.

08:21And ever since one botched attack against Ismail Haniyeh in Jordan many years ago now,

08:31two decades ago, Israel has taken a step back from attacking these leaders

08:38who are considered more of the international, of the kind of diplomatic front of Hamas.

08:43But of course, they are no less connected to Hamas's undertakings than anybody else.

08:50And it's just a few days ago, the Israeli defense minister in one of his many bombastic statements

08:58said that no one was immune, no Hamas leader should consider himself immune.

09:05And it now appears that this is what he was alluding to.

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