MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The suburbs of Qatar's capital, Doha, were rocked with explosions yesterday after Israel bombed Hamas' office and its residences there.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It marks the first attack of its kind by Israel on Qatar, a U.S. ally that's been hosting Hamas leaders in exile and is a mediator in the war in Gaza. In a few minutes, we'll hear directly from an official with the Qatari government on how they plan to respond. But first...
MARTIN: Here to tell us more about the attack and the fallout is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy, who is in Doha this morning. Aya, good morning. Thanks for joining us.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So could you just start with explaining what exactly happened in Qatar yesterday?
BATRAWY: Sure. So it was just before 4 p.m. here when explosions rang out in the capital in several locations. Videos showed pedestrians screaming and running for cover on the street. And Doha is a city where the last FIFA World Cup was played. It's a major international travel hub, and this is where Trump came in May and lavished praise on the leadership here because it hosts thousands of U.S. troops. So this was a stunning attack. And Israel's military claimed responsibility for it, saying it was targeting senior Hamas leaders who it says were, quote, "directly responsible" for the October 7 attack of 2023 on Israel.
Now, one of the bombings targeted Hamas' office here in Doha. This is where I and other reporters have sat in interviews with the group's political leaders. Some of them say the decision to attack Israel actually came from its military wing inside Gaza on October 7, not from them, that they did not have prior knowledge of it. Either way, Israel missed its target. It did not kill any senior Hamas officials. Instead, it killed six people, according to Hamas, among them, a Hamas official's son, the head of his office, three others with no titles with Hamas and a Qatari security officer.
MARTIN: And what is Qatar saying about this attack?
BATRAWY: Well, Qatar's prime minister describes this as state terrorism, and Qataris say they had no forewarning of the attack. So speaking from a podium last night, Qatar's prime minister said the attack on Qatar's soil is a message to the region that Israel is a rogue player, and that this attack is proof that Israel has worked to sabotage every attempt to achieve peace.
And here, I'll note that Qatar says its role as mediator and as host of Hamas' political leaders in exile has long been at the behest of successive U.S. administrations. And also, keep in mind that for nearly two years now, Qatar and Egypt have served as mediators between Israel and Hamas, hosting both sides in talks, some of them here at hotels in Doha, where mediators shuffle between floors to deliver messages between the two sides. And they've successfully mediated during Israel's war in Gaza the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees, though a deal to end the war remains out of reach.
Now, it is hard to see how Qatar might actually come and host Israel's top security brass here again after these attacks or if Hamas would remain in Doha, especially given that Israel did not achieve its mission here.
MARTIN: So as we understand this, Israel just tried to kill the Hamas officials who are responsible for negotiating ceasefire proposals, if I have that right. So how might this attack affect those efforts to end the war in Gaza?
BATRAWY: That is correct, yeah. And this was a unilateral Israeli decision, according to President Trump. He spoke with Qatar's emir after the attack yesterday and said the U.S. was not on board with it. Now, what we're hearing from Israeli officials, like the defense minister and others, is they are calling this now a, quote, "message." They say Israel will continue to pursue Hamas and that if the group does not surrender, they and Gaza will be annihilated. So what this means for the war is that for people in Gaza, their suffering, displacement, the killing of civilians every day continues with no end in sight. And the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza say the chance of bringing them back now faces greater uncertainty than ever before.
MARTIN: That is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy. Aya, thank you.
BATRAWY: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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