Doha strike shows that no peace can be achieved by recognising Israel
A man looks at smoke billowing from a building after an Israeli strike targeted Hamas negotiators in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on 9 September 2025
David Hearst writes in Middle East Eye on 10 September 2025:
Meshaal’s bodyguards chased the two agents down, and others in the team fled to the newly installed Israeli embassy for refuge. At first, it was thought that the attack had failed. Meshaal described the attack as a “loud noise in my ear” and “an electric shock”. But as the poison began to take effect, his condition deteriorated.
Meshaal was a Jordanian citizen at the time, and King Hussein was angry. He demanded that Israel turn over the antidote, and threatened both to put the Mossad agents on trial and pull out of the historic peace agreement he had signed three years earlier in Wadi Araba, recognising Israel.
Former US President Bill Clinton forced Netanyahu to comply. Humiliatingly, Danny Yatom, then the head of Mossad, flew to Amman with the antidote. Meshaal, who was by then in a coma, survived.
Not only that, but Hussein had only released the two Mossad agents that Hamas bodyguards had caught. Six other members of the team were holed up in the Israeli embassy, and the king would only let them go if Israel released from prison Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, along with a large number of other Palestinian prisoners.
The whole affair proved a big blow to Israel. The sheikh began a victory tour of the region. Meshaal’s career in Hamas was launched. He had been relatively junior in the organisation before the attack, and Hamas itself gained in prestige as a movement that could stand up to a bully.
Whether the same scenario will play out today is another matter, but the elements of a major humiliation for Israel already exist.
Sending a message
Only a standard Hamas security procedure of moving venue after the participants of a meeting had gathered, and separating participants from their mobile phones, saved Meshaal and the entire Hamas negotiating team from extinction in Doha on Tuesday.