Israel Just Took a Huge Step to Escalate the War. It Risks Alienating Trump.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

Israel today launched an air strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where they were discussing a possible peace deal in Gaza—a move that signals three things. First, no ceasefire, much less an enduring peace, is anywhere near, much less on, the table. Second, Hamas is in weaker shape than ever. But third, despite its military advantages, Israel is widening the war at huge political risks.

Most remarkable of all, these risks include further alienating President Donald Trump. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America's goals,” Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt said soon after the strikes.

At first glance, the air strikes had seemed a follow-up to Trump's threats against Hamas' leaders on Monday, demanding that they sign a ceasefire proposal that he and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made—“ or else .” Later that day, Hamas issued a statement rejecting the deal, saying that it wasn't a real peace offer at all but rather a ploy whose “ primary goal ” was to prompt a rejection.

It seems unlikely that Netanyahu would order such a dramatic strike without Trump's consent. Then again, it's unclear why Trump's press secretary would condemn the attack in such sharp terms—a rebuke that would soften whatever blow Netanyahu meant to deliver—if it were insincere. Did Netanyahu interpret Trump's threat as a green light after Hamas nixed the ceasefire proposal? Did Trump or one of his emissaries say something that bolstered Netanyahu's impression, without quite knowing the implications of what he was saying?

Several news agencies reported Tuesday afternoon that the White House knew about the attack ahead of time and informed the Qataris . I guess it's possible to both know about an impending attack and criticize it afterward. It's also possible for the Qataris, given their dual interest in the geopolitics of the region, to let the attack proceed, killing some Hamas negotiators or leaders (about whom they have mixed feelings anyway), and to condemn it afterward as well.

Netanyahu said the air strikes were precisely carried out against a single target. Israeli media reported the strike involved 15 Israeli fighter jets dropping 10 bombs on a single target. According to Hamas, the attack killed five junior members of the group but none of its top leaders.

In any case, the attack marked the first time that Israel struck Hamas leaders inside Qatar, and this is significant for several reasons. Qatar, an oil-rich emirate on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, has been playing both sides in this conflict for many years—acting as both an ally of Hamas (funneling money to its militias, housing its leaders in plush apartments) and a middleman in negotiations between Hamas and the rest of the world.

Three facts make this situation beneficial for Qatar, and awkward for the rest of the world. First, the United States has encouraged Qatar to play this dual role , mainly to keep the Islamist terrorist organization under some control. Second, at least until the Oct. 7 attack, Israel allowed money to be funneled from Qatar to Hamas, in part to monitor the flow, and in part to weaken the standing of Hamas' more moderate rival, the Palestinian Authority, thus reducing the pressure for negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a solution that the PA favors but both Netanyahu and Hamas, for different reasons, oppose.

Finally, since 1996, Qatar has hosted the largest US military base in the Middle East , an air base that has allowed the United States to conduct military operations throughout the region that it otherwise could not, at least not so easily.

As a result of these three factors, the US and Israel have felt constrained in how much they could pressure Qatar to put pressure on Hamas—even as frustrations have mounted over Qatar's blanket refusal to apply any pressure at all since Hamas' attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Jews, the largest such massacre on a single day since the Holocaust.

In recent weeks, Hamas' leaders made steps toward accepting a resumption of a phased ceasefire—although it was unclear how sincere those steps were. In any case, Netanyahu responded by altering the terms, demanding an “ all-or-nothing ” deal, where all Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners would be released at once, simultaneous with the disarmament and surrender of Hamas. Trump endorsed the idea. This was a nonstarter—and, as Hamas charged in its statement, probably designed to be so.

Tuesday's air strike could mark a turning point in Arab-Israeli politics. Afterward, Netanyahu said that from now on, there will be “ no immunity for Hamas leaders ,” regardless of where they are.

In saying this, he also sent a message to Qatar's leaders that he had run out of patience for their complicity with Hamas. And perhaps both Netanyahu and Qatar's leaders believed this meant Trump's patience had run out as well—though Trump's dissociation rather blunts the point.

Given the complexity of dependencies in the US-Israel-Qatar-Hamas nexus, it is hard to say where things go next. Will Qatar, hit directly for the first time, start seriously squeezing Hamas? Will it move the other way, restricting US activities on the military base? (This seems doubtful, given Trump's rebuke and—whatever the truth of his attitude—the revenue and other benefits that the base provides to both countries.) Or will the Qataris keep doing what they've been doing, see how the situation plays out, and calculate what they might extract, whatever happens?

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to pummel, evacuate, and possibly occupy Gaza City —and perhaps, as a long-term goal, all of Gaza. As it does so, radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank have also stepped up their violence against the native Palestinians—with no pressure to stop from either Netanyahu's government or the Trump administration, even though Trump has sometimes complained about both this pressure and the starving of civilians in Gaza.

A story in the latest issue of the Economist reports that Hamas “ looks close to defeat .” Its military leaders have been killed, its supply of arms has dried up (as the suppliers of those arms, mainly Iran and Hezbollah, have faced their own severe setbacks), and now, with the attack on Qatar, its source of politico-economic support may be at peril as well. Finally, the Economist cites polls showing just 6 percent of Gaza's population supports Hamas—although these polls are of uncertain reliability and Hamas' concern about public opinion in Gaza seems limited as well.

Netanyahu and his aides seem to see all these trends as pointing to an imminent victory—not just in the defeat of Hamas but also, in the eyes of the ultra-right nationalists in his coalition, the expansion of Israel to include the Palestinian territories, and possibly (some have been explicit on this point) the expulsion of Palestinians.

This is a high-stakes gamble, even from the vantage of Israel's interests. First, continued escalation of the war will endanger—almost certainly doom—the remaining Israeli hostages, whose lives still mean a great deal to most Israelis, including the majority that favors the destruction of Hamas.