Israel’s Doha Strike May Have Turned the Tide

Excerpt

Khalil Al-Hayya made his first public appearance on Saturday night. The chief Hamas negotiator, who is also described by the terrorist organization as the leader of Hamas in Gaza, looked less than excited to be featured on Qatari television. He lost his son, Humam, when the Israeli Air Force, in partnership with the Shin Bet, struck an apartment building in the heart of Doha on September 9.

Three Hamas bodyguards were killed in the attack, along with al-Khayya’s son and a Qatari guard. According to one Israeli source, “the top Hamas leadership was there when the missiles were fired, but they weren’t when the missiles arrived.” For that reason, the attack was widely jeered as a failure. But now, with a Trump end-of-conflict agreement in the offing, the conventional wisdom about the operation is starting to collapse. The Doha strike may prove to have been the motive force leading to the war’s end.

Jonathan Schanzer is executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies and contributing editor to Commentary. Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.