Has Israel’s Qatar strike scuppered a ceasefire?

Israel’s president has defended his country’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha amid growing international condemnation over the targeted air strike on Qatari territory. “If you want to move on, you have to remove some of the people if they are not willing to get that deal,” said Isaac Herzog.

What did the commentators say?

By attacking “parties to a negotiation in the midst of their deliberations”, Israel has “literally blown up” Gaza ceasefire talks, said ABC News.

The air strike shows “it has no interest” in stopping the war in Gaza. The Hamas negotiators were the very people who “could approve a ceasefire and had already agreed to multiple proposals before”. This assassination attempt will “make any country or group question the point” of negotiating with Israel.

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Whatever “diplomatic momentum existed” has “evaporated into thin air” since Israel struck Qatar, said Daniel DePetris in The Spectator. The latest draft ceasefire was “tabled just a few days ago” but it “now lies in tatters, if it was a serious proposal to begin with”. Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have “dealt a serious blow to a diplomatic process that was already on life support”; this was probably “the goal all along”.

Netanyahu has “clearly concluded” that ceasefire negotiations were “leading nowhere”, said the Council on Foreign Relations. So “decapitating Hamas” is a more efficient way for Israel to “advance its war aims of destroying the group, bringing home Israeli hostages” and making sure that Hamas “can never rule again”.

For Hamas, the strike “could be a warning to get on with things” and “accept the deal on offer”, said David Patrikarakos on UnHerd. Either way, Netanyahu has “staked his legacy” on the “gamble” that “overwhelming strength and the repeated destruction of Israel’s enemies” can achieve "what diplomacy with Hamas has not”.

What next?

The Qatari government has commissioned a legal team to look into holding Netanyahu responsible for breaking international law with the attack.

Meanwhile, the EU may suspend bilateral support for Israel in the wake of the incident, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The proposed measures include sanctions targeting “extremist ministers and violent settlers” as well as a partial freeze on trade agreements.

The Doha attack could also imperil the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel and several Arab states, said Rami G. Khouri on Al Jazeera. How Washington handles the “intensifying Israeli attacks” on Arab states could “shape the future” of relations between the US and the Gulf nations.