For more than a decade, Qatar has played one of the Middle East’s most dangerous games of double-dealing: hosting both the U.S.’s largest regional military base and also the political headquarters of Hamas. On Tuesday, the sheikhdom’s ruling Al Thani family ran out of luck.
Israeli warplanes struck the offices of Hamas’s Shura Council in downtown Doha, Qatar’s capital, in a bid to assassinate leaders accused of being involved in the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and other terrorist strikes. President Donald Trump learned about the impending operation from the American military, but didn’t warn Israel off from the attack, U.S. officials said. Instead, he notified Qatar’s ruling emir and prime minister after the strike began.
Trump publicly directed his “last warning” to Hamas on Sunday, saying that it must accept a U.S.-backed offer to end its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip and return Israeli and American hostages held there, or face unspecified reprisals.
U.S. officials told The Free Press that Hamas has offered few signals that it would sign on to the Trump-backed ceasefire deal, and appeared to thumb its nose at the White House by claiming responsibility for a Palestinian terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Sunday that left at least six Israelis dead.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sought to maintain distance between the U.S. and Israel after the attack, stressing that there was no American military or intelligence involved in the operation and that Qatar remained a critical American ally. But she still signaled that Trump approved of it.
