By targeting senior Hamas officials engaged in ceasefire talks, Tel Aviv crossed a threshold few imagined possible: violating the sovereignty of a Gulf state and striking at the very idea of diplomacy itself.
Six people were killed, including a Qatari security officer and the son of Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya. Fortunately, the operation turned into a fiasco and the intended targets escaped unharmed.
The political fallout has been far more consequential than the blast itself.
For Palestinians, the attack was another episode in a genocidal war that has already claimed more than 65,000 lives, displaced nearly nine in ten Gazans, and destroyed the enclave’s infrastructure.
For the Arab world, the message was starker still: under the umbrella of unconditional US protection, Israel now acts as if no Arab capital is beyond reach.
Qatar was not chosen by chance.
For more than a decade, at Washington’s request, it has hosted Hamas’s political bureau and acted—alongside Egypt—as a crucial mediator in truces, prisoner exchanges, and ceasefire proposals.
The strike was therefore not only an attack on Hamas leaders but a deliberate attempt to delegitimise Qatar’s role as a neutral intermediary. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani denounced the assault as “state terrorism,” warning it may have destroyed any chance of recovering Israel’s captives.
Egypt reacted with calculated firmness.
According to Israeli sources, Cairo downgraded its diplomatic contacts with Tel Aviv to the bare minimum required for humanitarian coordination.
At the United Nations (UN), Egypt’s ambassador declared that Qatar’s security is part of collective Arab security—language unusually forceful for Cairo.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi also revived discussion of a joint Arab defence force, signalling that Egypt still sees itself as the cornerstone of regional security despite its economic fragility.
For the Gulf states, the strike was a sobering wake-up call.
Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani received solidarity from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, showing that the attack transcended political rivalries. Yet the contradictions are glaring.
Even the UAE, the pioneer of the Abraham Accords and the state that presented itself as Israel’s bridge to the Arab world, now finds it publicly difficult to defend or justify Israeli behaviour. The Doha strike has left Abu Dhabi visibly embarrassed, forced to square its strategic partnership with Tel Aviv against an emerging Gulf and Arab consensus that sees the assault as intolerable.
Washington, meanwhile, has emerged more discredited than ever.
If it did not know of the strike, that suggests an alarming inability to restrain its closest ally; if it did, it was complicit. In both scenarios, American security guarantees to its Arab partners look increasingly hollow.
Israel’s impunity under US protection has left Arab capitals dangerously exposed, forcing a reconsideration of strategy, whether through collective Arab arrangements or diversification of partnerships with Europe, China, and Russia.
In the last week alone, and beyond Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel has carried out strikes in Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, Syria, and Tunisia; underscoring its shift from deterrence to domination, and its willingness to hit targets across the Arab world shamelessly and without restraint.
It was in this context that the Doha Arab–Islamic Summit convened on 15 September 2025. Its final communiqué went beyond protocol to redefine the Arab position.
It condemned the strike as a flagrant violation of a UN member state, described it as an attack on the mediation process itself, and denounced Israel’s “criminal record.” It affirmed unconditional solidarity with Qatar, pledged support for any steps it might take to defend its sovereignty, and linked the assault to the erosion of international peace-making.
It also praised Qatar’s responsible conduct and highlighted support for Egyptian-Qatari-American efforts to end the war on Gaza.
In parallel, the international stage echoed these shifts.
On 12 September, the UN General Assembly passed the New York Declaration with 142 votes in favour, 10 against, and 12 abstentions.
Sponsored by Saudi Arabia and France, the resolution called for an immediate end to the war, condemned both Hamas’s 7 October attack and Israel’s devastation of Gaza, and envisaged a temporary international stabilization mission. While non-binding, the outcome strengthens Arab diplomacy, provides political cover for recognition of Palestine, and raises the reputational costs of Israel’s current course.
Taken together, these developments highlight three realities.
First, the strike on Doha was not an isolated escalation but part of Israel’s attempted regional strategy of domination.
Second, mediation and diplomacy are being reaffirmed as strategic tools no less important than military power.
Third, Egypt and Qatar are now central: Egypt with its military power, geographic weight and global diplomatic network; Qatar with its resources and international influence.
The crisis has also revived debate about unused Arab leverage.
The Gulf alone maintains over $2 trillion in trade and investments with the United States. Coordinated use of this economic power could restrain Israeli adventurism — but it has yet to be deployed. The Doha strike is a stark reminder of the cost of inaction.
At the core remains Palestine.
The attack on Doha forms part of a continuum: the destruction of Gaza, the starvation of its people, the assassination of its leaders, and daily violence in the West Bank. For Arab publics already outraged—and for Arab ruling elites—it confirms that Israel’s aggression knows no limits, and that it must be deterred and checked.
The summit floated measures ranging from downgrading ties with Israel to legal action in international courts to reviving the Arab boycott to reactivating the 1950 Arab Joint Defence Pact. Whether these remain words or become policy will determine if the Arab system can defend its sovereignty.
Amidst the turmoil, a window of opportunity opens for enhanced Egyptian–Qatari cooperation. Both states now find themselves indispensable mediators and direct targets of Israel’s strategy.
A joint initiative, backed by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf leader and regional heavyweight, and broader Arab consensus, could restore momentum to Arab diplomacy, combine pressure on Israel with engagement of Washington, and reassert Arab agency in regional politics.
Israel’s strike on Doha is more than a military escalation. It is an assault on Arab sovereignty and a blow to the credibility of diplomacy.
Still, it also further confirmed the collapse of Israel’s longest-standing narrative of moral legitimacy and superiority.
Arab leaders now face a stark choice: turn Doha and New York into a turning point for collective action, or be remembered as the generation that allowed Israel to strike Arab capitals with impunity.
For Cairo, Doha and the Arab world as a whole, the message is unambiguous: enough is enough.
The Israeli threat must be confronted, balanced and deterred; the idea of an Arab regional security order must be revisited and reinvigorated; and launching an Arab joint military force has become a pressing priority.
* The writer is a professor of political science at New Giza University
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