QATAR: Israeli airstrike on Hamas villa in Doha

GULF COUNTRIES - In Brief 09 Sep 2025 by Justin Alexander

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UPDATE: A Qatari security officer was killed. This significantly increases the stakes. Meanwhile, although some Hamas members were killed, the senior leaders were not. At about 4pm local time today, an Israeli airstrike targeted the residence of Hamas's political office in the West Bay Lagoon neighborhood of Doha. For anyone who has visited, it is just to the West of The Pearl artificial islands and a block west of the south exit of the West Bay Lagoon area (just left of the "West Bay Lagoon" label on this Google map). Photos show the plumes of smoke (X). It is a residential district - I've had reports from friends only a block from the target, whose children were terrified by the explosion - which also contains several schools and embassies. The sounds of about 12 explosions were heard across the city. At the time of writing, there is no information on casualties, but given the capacity of Israeli intelligence and the fact that Hamas's presence in Qatar was very open - everyone locally knew where the villa was - it is likely that the strike was timed when key people were present, perhaps including Khalil al-Hayya, who has been the lead in negotiations, Shura Council chief Muhammad Darwish and former chief Khaled Mashal. It is likely that the precision strike did not harm any non-Hamas members, but if it did, that would increase the controversy of the incident. Qatar has hosted Hamas's political wing since it relocated from Syria in 2012, when it fell out with the Assad regime over the Syrian civil war. The US had requested that Qatar host Hamas in order to facilitate communication with the group. Although Qatar has faced considerable criticism for its hosting, particu...