Qatar did what the U.S. and Israel asked. The missiles came anyway

It was on Oct. 7, 2023, that much of the world learned for the first time that Hamas's leaders lived in air-conditioned comfort 2,000 kilometres away from Gaza — as guests of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was still in Qatar when he learned that Israel had killed three of his sons and four grandchildren in a strike in Gaza. Israel would eventually kill him, too. But it waited for him to visit Tehran in July 2024 before striking him with a missile.

"It's one thing for Israel to target Hamas in, say, Iran and in other places," said Kamran Bokhari, senior director of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. "But Qatar is a major ally of the United States."

But Israel finally struck that major U.S. ally on Tuesday when it targeted the headquarters of the Hamas political leadership in its capital, Doha.

Condemnation of the attack in Western capitals focused on the where, not the who, of Israeli targeting.

Prime Minister Mark Carney called it "an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar's sovereignty."

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said U.S. President Donald Trump "feels very badly about the location of this attack."

Hamas are not the only foreign guests of Qatar, a country with just 300,000 citizens, outnumbered 10-1 by non-Qatari residents and guest workers.

Just a few minutes' drive away from the hotels and villas housing Hamas leaders is Al-Udeid Air Base, home to the U.S. military's Central Command.

Thomas Juneau, an expert in Middle Eastern politics at the University of Ottawa and a frequent visitor to the country, said Qatar made the calculus years ago that "the best way to ensure its security would be to make itself indispensable."

He said that is why the country chose to take on the role of mediator "not only between Israel and Hamas, but within multiple other conflicts as well."

CBC News asked the Embassy of Qatar following the Oct. 7 attacks why the country was hosting Hamas leadership.

"The Hamas office in Doha … has been used from the beginning as a channel of communication and a means to bring peace to the region and that is in co-ordination with our Western allies, particularly the United States," the embassy responded in a statement.

"When the Hamas office was opened in Qatar several years ago, it was done with the very explicit support of the U.S. and Israel. This was not done against their wishes," Juneau said.

Even after the Oct. 7 attack, the Biden administration did not publicly pressure Qatar to expel Hamas leaders, and the Qataris continued to play host and mediator for Hamas without protest from the Trump administration.

Carney echoed the sentiment that the country plays a stabilizing role, saying Israel's strikes on Doha "directly imperil efforts to advance peace and security, secure the release of all hostages and achieve a lasting ceasefire" — and that Qatar's emir "plays a highly constructive role."

Qatar has indeed played a major role in the Israeli hostage negotiations — within 48 hours of the Hamas assault on southern Israel and until now.

This week, Al-Thani pressed Hamas to accept the latest ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media.

Israel's relations with Qatar have been stranger than Washington's, owing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long-held, and ultimately disastrous, policy of supporting the extremist group's rule in Gaza in order to prevent any movement toward a two-state solution.

When Hamas was on the ropes financially in 2018, Qatari envoy Mohamed Al-Emadi showed up with suitcases full of millions of dollars of cash to save the day. Far from opposing the move, Israel co-operated closely with Qatar to make it happen, including meetings in Cyprus between key ministers of both governments.

Netanyahu also dispatched security officials to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas, according to furious denunciations by hawkish minister Avigdor Lieberman.

"Netanyahu explicitly allowed Qatar to pay civil service salaries, for example, in Gaza before October 2023," said Juneau. "Netanyahu also allowed Qatar to co-ordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip before October 2023."

The Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia both roundly condemned Israel and Qatar for their support of Hamas, accusing them of seeking to prop up an illegitimate group in order to undermine the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which has committed to a two-state solution.

Israel's surprise attack is sure to cause Qatar's ruling family to question whether their strategy of being the world's intermediary makes them safer, say the experts.

"The Qataris are sort of looking at the United States and saying, 'OK, what does this mean for your commitment to our security?' And the same question is being asked by other Gulf nations," said Bokhari.

"One option is that Qatar walks away from its mediation role, specifically with regards to Hamas," said Juneau, which could lead the Hamas leadership to then move to Turkey or Iran — an outcome that "would make eventual and inevitable negotiations much more difficult."

WATCH | UN head denounces attack on Doha:

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned Israel’s strike on Qatar Tuesday, saying 'all parties must work towards achieving a permanent ceasefire, not destroying it.' Israel said it targeted Hamas leaders in Doha who were meeting to consider a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel had accepted his peace terms.

But while this might not help Israel to recover its hostages, it could serve Netanyahu's short-term political goals.

"His governing coalition includes far-right political parties who have been very clear that in the eventuality of a sustainable ceasefire with Hamas, after which Hamas would survive, they would leave government," said Juneau.

"It is quite possible that Netanyahu is viewing negotiations not as an end in themselves, but as a means simply to ensure his political survival — with no serious intention of seeing them succeed in any way."

Nader Hashemi, who teaches Middle East politics at Washington's Georgetown University, points to Netanyahu's stated goal of conquering all of Gaza.

"You have a diplomatic settlement that calls for ceasefire, an exchange of hostages, that doesn't advance that broader goal that Netanyahu is clearly committed to," Hashemi said. "So you kill the peace negotiators."