Doha: The Judgment Day Has Arrived

Israel’s strike yesterday in Doha was more than an operation; it was an official declaration that Hamas has no refuge left and that their terrorist activities — like the one perpetrated in Jerusalem on Monday by two Palestinian Hamas-affiliated terrorists — will be punished.

In the capital of Qatar, the Hamas billionaire “political leadership” (due to their money laundering activities in Gaza and the endless construction companies they own in the Strip thanks to the “international financial aid” they divert for their personal benefit) thought they were untouchable, while sipping coffee under Qatari protection and Gaza civilians starved (current data shows that 90% of the over two million tons of Israeli aid sent to the Strip has been taken to the terror tunnels instead of reaching the streets of the Palestinian enclave).

Given this inconsistency, the world just witnessed what Israeli justice and courage are by demonstrating that terror masterminds will be hunted down even in “Modern Sunni, Moderate, Western allied” capitals hosting U.S. military bases (a shield Hamas thought was going to allow them to move freely and do whatever they wanted).

In Doha, Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence turned exile into a trap, hitting Hamas’s external leadership and leaving its fate uncertain. Saudi media say all were killed; Doha and Hamas remnants insist they survived. That uncertainty itself is proof of how destabilizing the strike was.

Meanwhile, inside Gaza, Hamas is finished. In fact, 23 out of 24 battalions were fully destroyed; 30% of the 500 km of tunnels were wiped out, including 80% of this type of infrastructure in Rafah and 85% in Khan Yunis.

Simultaneously, 30,000 terrorists have been killed, and one by one, Hamas leaders have fallen:

• Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, assassinated by Mossad in Tehran.

• Yahya Sinwar, de facto leader in Gaza and the “Butcher of Khan Yunis,” hunted and killed in Rafah.

• Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas and West Bank commander, eliminated by a drone in Beirut.

• Marwan Issa, deputy commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, buried in an airstrike in Nuseirat.

• Salah al-Bardawil, senior Political Bureau member, struck down with his wife in Khan Yunis.

• Mohammed Sinwar, Yahya’s brother and head of Hamas’s military wing, killed in Gaza.

• Sameh al-Sarraj, chief of finances and internal security, destroyed in a Gaza City tunnel.

• Raad Thabet, top recruiter and logistics commander, killed in the Al-Shifa raid.

• Osama Mazini, political leader and negotiator, eliminated in Gaza City.

• Abu Obayda, spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, silenced forever.

• Mahmoud Afana, senior Nukhba operative and October 7 killer, taken out in Deir al-Balah.

Beyond Hamas, Israel has also shattered its Gaza allies: over 3,000 Islamic Jihad fighters are dead, with historical commanders like Tayseer al-Jabari and Khaled Mansour gone. In addition to this, Islamic Jihad has seen much of its arsenal destroyed: dozens of rocket launchers, weapons caches, and fortified bunkers wiped out by Israeli strikes, leaving the group militarily crippled and unable to sustain coordinated attacks.

Even ISIS in Gaza lost its self-proclaimed “emir,” Abu al-Husayn al-Ghazawi, last week. Al-Ghazawi had overseen ISIS’s attempts to infiltrate refugee camps and launch sporadic attacks inside Gaza, but his death signaled the complete collapse of ISIS’s presence in the Strip.

The message is consistent: every Palestinian and non-Palestinian Iranian proxy is now a target.

Therefore, in the northern front, Hezbollah has lost more than 1,200 fighters, along with its historical leader Hassan Nasrallah, strategist Fuad Shukr, and operations chief Ibrahim Aqil. In addition to these heavy fatalities, Israel has crushed Hezbollah’s arsenal—destroying hundreds of missile launchers, dozens of advanced drones, and significant stockpiles of precision-guided rockets, leaving the group’s military capacity severely impaired.

On the other hand, yesterday’s strike followed last week’s blow against the Houthis in Yemen, where more than 250 fighters were killed and missile bases destroyed. In addition to these casualties, Israel also wiped out dozens of missile launchers, drone platforms, and radar systems, striking deep into the Houthis’ arsenal and weakening their ability to threaten the Red Sea.

Every faction in the terror axis has been decapitated. And yet Doha matters most, because it shows Hamas leaders are mortal not only in Gaza’s ruins but also in five-star hotels abroad. That reality empowers Palestinians to turn against their captors and enables Israel to move toward full military control of Gaza, replacing management with finality and a clear message: “There is a new chief in town.”

Consequently, and out of this new context for Palestinians, modern alternatives emerge within their society. That is why several Hebron sheikhs are fostering the idea of a “Palestinian emirate”—independent of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, rooted in clan legitimacy, and open to coexistence with Israel. This new national model proposal could align with the Abraham Accords, ending the monopoly of terror groups and offering Palestinians a model closer to the Gulf monarchies: stability, prosperity, and peace instead of endless war.

At the same time, it could bring a new sociological trend in which the rest of the Palestinians may feel tempted to follow. This “non-return” scenario might be a great opportunity for them to move away from Islamic terrorism to achieve their national goals and finally establish their borders in the southern West Bank area (because the future Gaza will look more like Trump’s Riviera than the former system that led them to disaster).

At the same time, the regional implications are immense. With Hamas destroyed, Hezbollah faces the same fate and full demilitarization, while Beirut gains momentum to free itself from Tehran’s grip.

In Syria, Al-Sharaa’s growing influence could stabilize Damascus and open the way to key security agreements with Israel.

Thereupon, alongside Riyadh, Beirut and Damascus could take advantage of these avant-garde geopolitical dynamics and set the stage for a new Abraham Accords chapter.

Despite all this, the Doha strike also reshapes the delicate status of our hostages. With Qatar removed from the mediation process, one of the few channels Hamas used to negotiate indirectly with Israel has collapsed. This could accelerate the end of the war by stripping Hamas of international leverage, but it also raises the risk that the remaining hostages alive in Gaza could be further endangered as Hamas loses both protection and bargaining power. The strategic dilemma is stark: accelerate total victory, or risk the hostages’ lives in pursuit of it.

That said, two final questions remain:

1-According to the Wall Street Journal, the 10 Israeli jets that were deployed to fire long-range munitions in Doha did not breach the airspace of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, so who opened their skies for Israel to strike the ‘Hamas billionaires’? Egypt, Bahrain, Oman (which have recently shifted away from their permanent “regional diplomatic neutrality status”)?

This question is important because we cannot forget that on June 5th, 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt imposed a diplomatic and economic embargo on Qatar—accusing it of supporting terrorism and aligning too closely with Iran- which cut off air, land, and sea links for three years; thus it won’t be insane to think that this move could have been a new Saudi-sponsored operation (which would explain why Riyadh’s press reported on Israeli activities in Doha even before the Israeli press) against Qatar and a strategic move to strengthen its behind the scenes relations with Israel.

2-Should Turkey be concerned about their bond with Hamas and their willingness to expand the “Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic political jihad”?

Regarding the first question, whoever it was, the silence speaks volumes, and history will remember. About the second issue, there is no doubt that if Israel ever dares to attack Turkey -a NATO member, host of a U.S. nuclear arsenal” and a former member of the F-35 aircraft alliance; until it became too close with Russia to the point of buying the Russian-made S-400’s- it is very probable that, as we saw today, Bibi might end up going to the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem to celebrate this and confirm that his initiative was known and supported by the Americans.

Like the PLO Hammam Chott operation in 1985 and the one in Yemen last week, yesterday’s strike in Doha is not just the death knell of Hamas; doubtlessly, it is the dawn of a new Middle East, where terror groups are hunted until the end and peace is built upon victory, not weakness.

For Hamas, this was more than an assassination; it was the ‘Judgment Day’ at the same place where Ismail Haniyeh once prayed and celebrated the October 7th massacre only to see Hamas and its hateful war machine buried forever.