On Tuesday, September 9, Israel launched a missile attack on the Hamas leadership base in the Qatari capital Doha, killing five Hamas leaders and a Qatari security officer. It is by any yardstick a terrorist attack that shocked the world. Although the top Hamas figures were targeted, Hamas said that its key leaders who were supposed to participate in the peace negotiations survived. Tuesday's attack would not have been a small crime for the Zionist terrorist state, which is used to wreaking havoc by bombing hospitals in Gaza, killing innocent women, pregnant women, and infants, and destroying residential buildings. 64,600 human beings have already died in Gaza without even receiving proper posthumous care. However, killing Hamas leaders, who were parties to the ceasefire talks, within the boundaries of a sovereign state that was hosting peace talks in the efforts to end this, is no small crime.
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Qatar, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), and most Arab countries have condemned the attack. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani called US President Donald Trump to express his anger. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was also quick to strongly denounce the Israeli aggression. US President Trump himself stated that this attack will not advance Israel or the US interests in the slightest. However, he also added in the next breath that eliminating Hamas is a worthy goal. That is equal to engaging in negotiations with one of the two parties to the conflict on the one hand, then saying that eliminating that party is a worthy goal, and also giving the assailant country arms and money as it pleases. In this scenario, everyone must admit that America is the best 'broker' for peace in the Middle East !
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The US did ask Hamas to accept the ceasefire agreement they had proposed or face serious consequences. Hamas in fact was in favour of a deal that would provide for releasing all prisoners by both sides. It was surmised that Hamas's demand that Israel release thousands of prisoners in exchange for 42 Israeli prisoners was almost met. Equally important to Hamas was the end of the Israeli military occupation of Gaza. Israel's position on this has not been made public. However, they said that they were considering Trump's proposals. Hamas also hoped that if the prisoners were transferred on the first day, they could hold talks to end the war in the second phase. The release of hostages is crucial for the Netanyahu government to face its own people. So is ending the insecurity in the country. When Netanyahu said he was taking full responsibility for the Doha bombing, he justified it by saying that it was revenge for the "terrorist" act in Jerusalem, attributed to Hamas, on Monday in which six people were killed and 12 were injured.
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If the issue is the attack on civilians, as Israel and its supporters always make it out, then one need only examine how many of the 64,000-plus people in Gaza killed by Israel were soldiers. A trend that has been observed in the perception of the Israeli-Palestinian war, then and now, is to ignore decades of Israeli oppression and then blaming the attack in the immediate context alone. It would also be worthwhile to recall what UN Secretary-General Guterres himself had said: that the much-hyped Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, did not happen out of a vacuum. It is also necessary to examine how proportionate the terrorist acts carried out by Israel in retaliation were. The terrorist attack carried out in Qatar, an independent sovereign state, in retaliation for the attack on Jerusalem also belongs to that category.
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Israel has once again proven that neither human decency nor the laws of the civilised era are a barrier to its terrorist acts. The touchstones that many countries in the world apply to evaluate Israel’s actions should also change to the side of justice. Many countries, including India, have condemned the attack in Jerusalem on Monday and said they oppose terrorism in any form. At the same time, when it comes to the Israeli bombing of the civilian neighbourhood in Qatar, they are not ready to call Israel’s Qatar bombing terrorism. They are content with expressing “deep concern” over the incident and stress the need to “adopt diplomatic means and exercise restraint". If the world does not deal with Israeli attacks by calling a spade a spade, all peace efforts are bound to end in vain.
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