By Andrew Mills, Jana Choukeir and Ahmed Elimam
DOHA/DUBAI (Reuters) -Israel launched an airstrike against Hamas leaders in Qatar on Tuesday, expanding military actions that have ranged across the Middle East to include the Gulf Arab state where the Palestinian Islamist group has long had its political base.
Qatar, which has acted as a mediator alongside Egypt in talks on a ceasefire in the almost two-year-old war in Gaza, condemned the attack as “cowardly” and called it a flagrant violation of international law.
Two Hamas sources told Reuters that Hamas officials in the ceasefire negotiating team survived the attack, which followed an evacuation order in Gaza City where Israel is waging an offensive to try to destroy the group and its military capabilities in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials told Reuters the strike was aimed at top Hamas leaders including Khalil al-Hayya, its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator. In Washington, a White House official said Israel had notified the U.S. about the strike beforehand.
The attack took place shortly after Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed six people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday.
The assault is likely to deal a serious, if not fatal, blow to efforts to reach a ceasefire, especially since negotiations have often taken place in the Gulf Arab country Qatar.
The Israeli operation drew strong reactions.
The United Arab Emirates, which normalised relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords in 2020, called the Israeli attack on Doha “blatant and cowardly”.
Abu Dhabi was already angry over an Israeli minister’s plan for annexation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, saying that was a red line that cannot be crossed.
Regional power Saudi Arabia denounced what it called a “brutal Israeli aggression” against Qatar’s sovereignty. Egypt said the attack set a dangerous precedent.
Pope Leo, who typically refrains from speaking off the cuff, expressed unusually forceful concern on Tuesday about the consequences of Israel’s strike in Qatar.
“There’s some really serious news right now: Israel’s attack on some Hamas leaders in Qatar,” the pontiff told journalists outside his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Doha attack was “entirely justified” and was ordered after Monday’s Jerusalem attack and the loss of four Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
Oil prices rose more than a dollar a barrel after the strike in Qatar.
BLASTS, PLUMES OF BLACK SMOKE
The Israeli military, meanwhile, issued evacuation orders for residents of Gaza City, causing panic and confusion, after Israel said it was about to obliterate the area in an assault to wipe out Hamas.
Residents of Gaza’s biggest urban area, home to a million Palestinians before the war, have been expecting an onslaught for weeks, since the Israeli government devised a plan to deal Hamas a fatal blow in what it says are the group’s last strongholds.
Anxiety was spreading through a tent area in Gaza City housing displaced cancer patients.
“There’s no place left, not in the south, nor the north, nothing. We’ve become completely trapped,” said Bajess al-Khaldi, a displaced cancer patient, as people looked on at the rubble of several buildings destroyed in an Israeli attack.
International critics say Israel’s Gaza plan, which includes demilitarising the whole Strip as Israel takes security control, could worsen the humanitarian plight of the 2.2 million Palestinians who live there.
The Gaza City assault plan has provoked concern inside Israel, where public support for the war has wavered. Israel’s military leadership has warned Netanyahu against expanding the war, according to Israeli officials.
Families of Israeli hostages and their supporters fear the attack could endanger the captives.
Netanyahu says he is acting out of Israel’s interest by moving to finish off Hamas in order to safeguard his country against any more attacks.
Several blasts were heard in Qatar’s Doha, Reuters witnesses said. Plumes of black smoke were billowing from the city’s Legtifya petrol station. Next door to the petrol station is a small residential compound that has been guarded by Qatar’s Emiri Guard 24 hours a day since the beginning of the Gaza conflict.
Ambulances and at least 15 police and unmarked government cars thronged the streets around the blast site an hour after the strike.
Israel has killed several top Hamas leaders since the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel has also launched airstrikes and other military action in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen in the course of the Gaza conflict.
In Lebanon, it attacked the heavily armed Iran-backed group Hezbollah and in Yemen it launched airstrikes on the Iran-aligned Houthi group. Both groups have launched strikes on Israel during the Gaza conflict.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha, Jana Choukeir in Dubai and Steven Scheer and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by William Maclean)
