The strike on Hamas leaders in Doha may not have been successful
It’s really really hard to know what to make of this sort of thing. Seems like a lot of rumors and anonymous sources. But make of it what you will:
Israeli officials appeared on Wednesday to increasingly cast doubt on the success of the previous day’s strike in Qatar targeting the leaders of the Hamas terror group’s politburo, with a series of anonymous quotes to Hebrew-language outlets.
The Kan public broadcaster said in an unsourced report that Israel had informed the United States that the chances that the strike had been successful had decreased significantly.
“Right now there’s no indication that the terrorists were killed,” an anonymous source was quoted telling Channel 12 news. “We continue to hope they were assassinated, but optimism is fading.”
Similar sentiments were reported by Kan, which quoted an official as saying that the final results needed to be seen but that it was possible the strike had not achieved “the desired result.”
Mike and Gadi with Israel Update today, they discuss the ramifications of the strike in Qatar: https://youtu.be/FpJlGpvNF_Q
At Power Line, this article quotes a paywalled essay at Tablet about the results of this strike. It says, even if the Hamas leaders have survived, they are no longer safe anywhere, and they and Qatar know it.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/09/the-reckoning-in-doha.php
One salient comment I have seen concerning the possible survival of some the targeted Hamasters went like this: if they survived they’ve had plenty of time to bring forth evidence of that (if fact), which would be a sort of propagandistic coup against Israeli power. Why then — the comment went on — why then have they not? It’s because they didn’t survive, is why.
No way I’ll take the time to look for it again (and quick search now is stacked with breathless reporting of Hamas leadership survival of past several hours) but I’m fairly certain I came across Hamas confirmations that something like 4 died and 2 survived in reports that were ‘day of’. That’s in line with sdferr’s comment above.
Incidentally, I think the Trump angry at Netanyahu thing is mostly performative, similar to what they did just before the Iran operation.
Plus Trump gave a pretty stern warning over the weekend.
Try, try, try again and never give up.
I saw a short video today [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjfEQTOpzb0 ] interviewing an Israeli colonel (or ex military person), who took the view that Trump had given Hamas a deadline and they failed to respond as he wanted. So he coordinated with Bibi, or at least acquiesced in, the Doha action to take out the leaders. This also is part of a program to expose Qatar as the slimeballs they really are, who are playing both sides but still supporting Hamas and other terrorists/ jihadists.
He even suggested perhaps we should move from the Doha airfield to one created on the Gazan Mediterranean coast, as just that much closer to any need for African related activity.
I now see that Paul S. said something similar at 8:52pm.