- 15:30
Israel’s strike on Hamas leadership in Qatar on Tuesday marked a sharp turning point. For the first time, Israel targeted the political heart of the Islamist movement outside its traditional battlegrounds.
In Doha, where Hamas believed it had secured a safe and comfortable refuge, missiles served as a stark reminder that even gilded hotels and promised lands of plenty offer no real immunity.
According to Al Jazeera, six people were killed, among them the son of Khalil al-Hayya and a Qatari officer. But the true targets of the operation were the remnants of Hamas’ political bureau—seasoned veterans now reduced to fugitives under constant watch.
Rumors of Death and Pathetic Denials
A few hours after the strike, Al-Hadath reported that Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal had been killed. Some Arab media even ran headlines that Hamas’ leadership had been wiped out. But, in a reflex of pure propaganda, the movement denied it, “Our leaders are alive,” it insisted, while conceding the death of al-Hayya’s son and several bodyguards.
The grim back-and-forth lays bare the extreme fragility of a leadership now reduced to a shadow of its former self. Hamas today is trapped in the absurd task of denying its own demise, issuing statements that read like cries for survival. The contrast could not be starker: once projecting the image of untouchable leaders, it now clings to little more than proof of life.
A Leadership Bled Dry
In the span of just two years, Israel’s campaign of targeted assassinations has methodically dismantled Hamas’ hierarchy. Mohammad Deif, the military strategist and so-called “ghost of Gaza,” was eliminated in July 2024. Yahya Sinwar, the symbol of Gaza, was killed that October. Nine months earlier, Saleh al-Arouri, the party’s second-in-command, was taken down in Beirut. And above all, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau, was assassinated in Tehran in July 2024.
This is all that remains of a movement that once claimed to embody the Palestinian “resistance:” a small, isolated circle, surviving only because it has so far escaped being targeted.
From Luxury to Isolation
The Doha strike also brought a stark paradox to light for Hamas. While Gaza lies in ruins and the Palestinian population scrambles to survive, its exiled leaders enjoy the comforts of Gulf capitals. Images of luxury buildings shattered by missiles clash sharply with the belligerent rhetoric they deliver from afar.
Hamas now finds itself trapped: invisible on the ground, hunted abroad, it holds neither military legitimacy nor political credibility.
The death of Ismail Haniyeh symbolizes this collapse. His assassination in Tehran in 2024 stripped Hamas of its last heavyweight leader, the one who had still managed to create the illusion of a centralized command and a coherent strategy. Since then, everything has fallen apart.
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