Israels

Israel falsely claimed a Hamas camera was the target of a deadly strike that killed 22 people, including journalists.

Israel’s justification for bombing a Khan Younis hospital in southern Gaza, claiming it targeted a Hamas camera, is false, according to an investigation by the news agency Reuters.

Israeli forces planned the August 25 attack on Nasser Hospital using drone footage that, a military official said, showed a Hamas camera that was the target of the strike. But a Reuters review of visual evidence and interviews with witnesses established that the camera in question actually belonged to the news agency and had long been used by one of its own journalists.

The “double-tap” attack killed 22 people, including five journalists – one of whom worked for Al Jazeera. Their deaths bring the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza to more than 200 since the genocidal war began nearly two years ago.

A day after the hospital strike, the army said troops had fired on a “suspicious” camera draped in cloth, claiming it was operated by Hamas. Drone footage later showed the device on a hospital stairwell, covered with a prayer rug belonging to Reuters journalist Hussam al-Masri – who was killed in the strike – not Hamas, Reuters found.

At least 35 times since May, al-Masri had positioned his camera on the same stairwell to record live broadcasts distributed worldwide. He often used the rug to shield it from heat and dust.

“The claim that Hamas was filming Israeli forces from Nasser Hospital is false and fabricated,” said Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office. “Israel is trying to cover up a full-fledged war crime against the hospital, its patients and medical staff.”

Reuters said it reviewed more than 100 videos and photos from the scene and interviewed more than two dozen people to reconstruct the events of the attack.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem described the stairwell as “a makeshift newsroom” where journalists had gathered before the strike. Al-Masri’s live broadcast froze moments before the blast, which killed him along with several civil defence workers. A second explosion struck as rescuers rushed in.

“We were rescuing the martyrs and wounded … then a huge explosion among us,” said Reuters cameraman Hatem Khaled.

Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals and other sites protected under international humanitarian law, including schools, shelters, mosques and churches. Its attacks have also killed journalists, medical staff, first responders and humanitarian workers. Despite repeated global calls for investigations, Israel continues to act with impunity while carrying out genocide in Gaza.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says Israel has never published the results of a formal investigation nor held anyone accountable for the killings of journalists.

“None of these incidents prompted a meaningful review of Israel’s rules of engagement, nor did international condemnation lead to any change in the pattern of attacks on journalists over the past two years,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Pressure is growing on football’s governing bodies to take action against Israel’s national football team over the war on Gaza.

Turkiye has become the first member of European football’s governing body, UEFA, to publicly call for Israel’s suspension from all football competitions, as pressure ramps up on the sport’s organising bodies to take action over the ongoing war on Gaza in advance of the World Cup 2026.

Turkish Football Federation President Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu on Friday sent a letter to international football leaders urging that “it is now time for FIFA and UEFA to act” – referring to the world and European football governing bodies.

“Despite positioning themselves as defenders of civic values and peace, the sporting world and football institutions have remained silent for far too long,” Haciosmanoglu said, according to Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

“Guided by these values, we feel compelled to raise our deep concern regarding the unlawful (and more importantly, completely inhumane and unacceptable) situation being carried out by the State of Israel in Gaza and its surrounding areas,” he added.

UEFA is moving towards a vote on whether to suspend Israel, whose men’s football team is in the middle of attempting to qualify for next year’s World Cup, co-hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The 20-member UEFA ruling committee is expected to secure a majority to exclude Israel from games if a vote is called.

Unease has grown regarding the apparent double standard of Israel’s treatment and that of Russia, whose national team was banned by both UEFA and FIFA in 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Also on Friday, a coalition of 48 high-profile professional athletes called on UEFA to suspend Israel from all football competitions over its assault on Palestinians in Gaza.

France midfielder Paul Pogba and English cricketer Moeen Ali were among 48 signatories to a statement calling for Israel’s suspension, published under the banner of Athletes 4 Peace.

“As professional athletes of diverse backgrounds, faiths, and beliefs, we believe sport must uphold the principles of justice, fairness, and humanity,” read the statement.

“We, the signatories of Athletes 4 Peace, call upon UEFA to immediately suspend Israel from all competitions until it complies with international law and ends its killing of civilians and the widespread starvation,” the athletes added.

The statement also cited the death last month of Suleiman al-Obeid – known as the Palestinian Pele – who, according to the Palestine Football Association, was killed when Israeli forces attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in southern Gaza.

Israel has been a full member of UEFA since 1994 after being expelled from the Asian Football Confederation two decades earlier in a vote initiated by Kuwait and backed by other Arab countries.

It has only qualified for one men’s World Cup – the 1970 competition held in Mexico – when it was knocked out in the group stage without winning a game.

On Thursday, the US Department of State said it would “absolutely work to fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national football team” from next year’s World Cup.

Though UEFA is able to stop Israel from participating in games related to European competitions, it cannot stop Israel from competing in FIFA-run World Cup qualifiers.

The head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has warm relations with President Donald Trump – visiting the US leader at the White House in March – and so is seen as unlikely to back a move to suspend Israel.

Infantino will chair a meeting of FIFA’s ruling council next Thursday in the Swiss city of Zurich.

Pressure is growing to ban Israel from the 2026 World Cup, with a key vote reportedly expected as early as next week.

The United States government says it will work to stop any attempt to ban Israel from taking part in the 2026 World Cup, amid calls for sporting sanctions against the country over its genocide in Gaza.

In a statement released to multiple media outlets on Thursday, a US State Department spokesperson pledged: “We will absolutely work to fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national football team from the World Cup.”

The 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament is due to be played in the US, Canada and Mexico.

According to reports, pressure is building within the European footballing body UEFA to ban Israel from matches in Europe – which could potentially block Israel from attempting to qualify for next year’s World Cup – after a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded last week that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

A majority of UEFA’s 20-member executive committee is reported to be supportive of a ban on Israel’s football team, according to The Associated Press news agency, with many concerned that football’s response to Israel and Russia has been inconsistent.

Russia was banned by both UEFA and FIFA – the world’s governing body for football – in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine, but Israel has remained in international footballing events despite multiple allegations of war crimes and now the UN’s declaration that the country is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.

Last week, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez added pressure when he called for sport sanctions on Israel, saying “until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be in any international competition.”

The Reuters news agency reports that UEFA officials are expected to call an emergency vote next week to decide on the ban.

Though UEFA has the power to stop Israel from participating in any games involving its European competitions, it cannot stop the Israeli team from competing in World Cup qualifiers, which fall under the responsibility of FIFA.

FIFA Chief Gianni Infantino is close to US President Donald Trump and has been in New York this week at the world football body’s satellite offices in Trump Tower.

With most of the 2026 World Cup games expected to be played in the US, and with Trump personally supportive of the tournament as well as being Israel’s staunchest ally, it is unclear whether FIFA would endorse a ban on Israel.

Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub told Norway’s TV2 that Israel should be banned from the World Cup competition, Reuters reports.

“Israel has violated the principles, values and FIFA’s statutes. Therefore, I believe that Israel should be sanctioned,” Rajoub said.

“The sanctions should come from UEFA and FIFA.”

Israel’s sports and culture minister, Miki Zohar, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel’s football association, Moshe Zuares, have been lobbying to keep its national team in the competition, AP reports.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday called Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip a “genocide,” marking a decisive shift in her government’s stance on the conflict — and putting it at odds with the United States.

Sheinbaum, who is one of a handful Jewish heads of state, has come under increasing pressure from members of her leftist coalition to more forcefully condemn Israel’s assault on the small Palestinian enclave, where at least 65,000 people have died and more than half a million are trapped in famine.

Speaking to journalists at her daily news conference, Sheinbaum said Mexico stands “with the international community to stop this genocide in Gaza.”

Claudia Sheinbaum, 63, is the first Jewish leader of Mexico, a nation that is overwhelmingly Catholic.

Her comments came amid a meeting in New York of the United Nations General Assembly, where several countries, including France, Britain, Canada and Australia, have formally recognized Palestine as a state. Mexico has formally supported Palestinian statehood for years.

Sheinbaum, 63, is the first Jewish leader of Mexico, a nation that is overwhelmingly Catholic. She grew up in a secular household and rarely talks about her Jewish identity.

Sheinbaum, who entered politics from the world of leftist activism, has long supported the Palestinian cause. In 2009, she wrote a letter to Mexican newspaper La Jornada fiercely condemning Israel’s actions in an earlier war with Gaza, where 13 Israelis and more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians and militants had been killed.

Sheinbaum evoked the Holocaust, saying “many of my relatives … were exterminated in concentration camps.”

“I can only watch with horror the images of the Israeli bombing of Gaza,” she wrote. “Nothing justifies the murder of Palestinian civilians. Nothing, nothing, nothing, can justify the murder of a child.”

The latest conflict broke out in 2023 after Hamas fighters broke through a border fence encircling Gaza and killed more than 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.

Israel responded with a punishing assault on Gaza from air, land and sea, displacing nearly all of the strip’s 2 million people and damaging or destroying 90% of homes.

Since taking office last year, Sheinbaum has repeatedly called for a cease-fire and reiterated Mexico’s support for a two-state solution in the region, but until Monday she had refrained from categorizing what is unfolding in Gaza as a genocide.

That was possibly to avert conflict with the United States, which has given more foreign assistance to Israel than any other country globally in the decades since World War II, and which has supported the war on Gaza with billions of dollars in weapons and other military aid.

Sheinbaum, whose nation’s economy depends heavily on trade with the U.S., has spent much of her first year in office seeking to appease President Trump on the issues of security and migration in order to avoid the worst of his threatened tariffs on Mexican imports.

Her comments on Gaza come amid growing global consensus that Israel is committing genocide.

The world’s leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The International Assn. of Genocide Scholars recently passed a resolution that says Israel’s conduct meets the legal definition as spelled out in the United Nations convention on genocide.

And this month, a U.N. commission of inquiry also found Israel has committed genocide.

An Israeli flag waves over debris in an area of the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel last month. Israel’s assault on the Palestinian enclave has killed at least 65,000 people.

(Maya Levin / Associated Press)

“Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group,” the commission wrote.

It added that under the Genocide Convention, other nations have an obligation to “prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”

Israeli officials dismissed the report as “baseless.”

Istanbul, Turkiye – Just hours after Israel launched strikes last week against Qatar – a United States-designated “major non-NATO ally” and one of Washington’s closest Gulf partners – pro-Israel commentators quickly shifted their attention to Turkiye.

In Washington, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, suggested that Turkiye could be Israel’s next target and warned that it should not rely on its NATO membership for protection.

On social media, Israeli academic and political figure Meir Masri posted, “Today Qatar, tomorrow Turkey.” Ankara responded sharply. In unusually harsh language, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote: “To the dog of Zionist Israel … soon the world will find peace with your erasure from the map.”

For months, pro-Israel media outlets have steadily escalated their rhetoric against Turkiye, portraying it as “Israel’s most dangerous enemy”.

Israeli commentators have also framed Turkiye’s presence in the eastern Mediterranean as a “threat” and its role in rebuilding post-war Syria as a “new rising danger”.

With Israel’s regional aggression escalating and its war on Gaza showing no sign of ending, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan retaliated in August by suspending economic and trade ties with Israel.

“In Ankara, this [anti-Turkish] rhetoric is taken seriously, with Israel seen as seeking regional hegemony,” Omer Ozkizilcik, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera.

“Turkiye increasingly feels that Israeli aggression has no limits and enjoys American support,” added Ozkizilcik.

The strikes on Qatar also likely underscored Ankara’s doubts about US security guarantees as a NATO ally. Despite Doha’s special ally status with Washington, Israel faced no visible pushback from the US, leading to questions over whether the US would truly see any attack on Turkiye as an attack on itself, as the NATO charter dictates.

Unlike many Arab states, however, “Turkiye has long ago understood that it cannot rely on the US or NATO for its own national security interests,” said Ozkizilcik.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself now increasingly boasts of his country’s regional expansionist goals. In August, when asked whether he believed in the idea of a “Greater Israel”, he replied: “Absolutely.”

For Ankara, such rhetoric is not just symbolic – it signals an Israeli vision of dominance that stretches across the Middle East, potentially clashing head-on with Turkiye’s own regional outlook.

On Sunday, Fidan told Al Jazeera that Israel’s “Greater Israel” vision – which some religious Zionists believe extends into modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan – aims to “keep the countries in the region weak, ineffective, and especially to leave Israel’s neighbouring states divided”.

Over the last few weeks alone, Israel – in addition to continuing its genocidal onslaught in Gaza and nearly-daily raids in the occupied West Bank – also attacked Yemen and Syria, and is accused of hitting the Gaza aid flotilla in Tunisia.

Against this backdrop, Turkiye and Israel are already in a “geopolitical rivalry”, noted Ozkizilcik, adding that Israel’s actions clashed with what the analyst views as the “Turkish agenda to have strong [centralised] states” rather than decentralised states where multiple forces can hold power.

Regional hegemon

The sense that Israel is trying to become the region’s sole dominant power seemed to be confirmed in July when Tom Barrack, US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy to Syria, made a startling admission: that Israel would prefer a fragmented and divided Syria.

“Strong nation-states are a threat – especially Arab states, [which] are viewed as a threat to Israel,” he said.

The subtext for Ankara was clear: Israel believes it needs to be the hegemon in the region to feel secure.

Israel’s actions bear this out. It has bombed Syria dozens of times since December 8 – when former President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow – and grabbed Syrian territory in the immediate chaos.

It decapitated much of Hezbollah’s leadership in 2024 and still occupies parts of Lebanon despite a ceasefire, long seeking to weaken or destroy the group.

In June, Israel attacked Iran, sparking a 12-day war that struck Iranian military and nuclear facilities, killing senior commanders and nuclear scientists, and dragged in the US.

The attacks aimed not only to weaken Tehran’s defence and nuclear capabilities but also to push Washington towards regime change, targeting one of Israel’s strongest rivals in the region.

Israel may now view Turkiye as the next potential challenge to its regional hegemony, explaining its adamant stance that Ankara will not be allowed to establish new bases in Syria that “could threaten Israel” – as Netanyahu has previously said.

“The first manifestation of Turkish-Israeli friction will most likely appear in the Syrian front in the land and air,” warns Cem Gurdeniz, a retired Turkish admiral and architect of the Blue Homeland doctrine, a maritime strategy that calls for Turkiye to assert its sovereignty and safeguard its interests across the surrounding seas – the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea.

“In parallel, Israel’s deepening military and intelligence footprint in Cyprus, tightly woven with Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration under American auspices, is perceived in Ankara as a deliberate attempt to fracture and contain the Blue Homeland,” Gurdeniz told Al Jazeera.

“To Ankara, this is not a defensive posture by Israel but an offensive encirclement strategy that could threaten both Turkish maritime freedom and the security of the Turkish Cypriot people,” he added, referring to Turkiye’s ties to the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is only Turkiye recognises, rather than the rest of Cyprus, which is ruled by Greek Cypriots.

The division of Cyprus is a major source of discontent between Turkiye, Greece and Cyprus.

Reports that Cyprus received Israeli air-defence systems last week are likely to raise alarm in Ankara.

In tandem in Syria, Israel has made no secret that what it considers to be a stable Syria “can only be a federal” one with “different autonomies”, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told European leaders at a meeting in Brussels in February.

Turkiye, on the other hand, backs the new Syrian administration, which insists on a centralised and unitary state.

For now, tensions between Israel and Turkiye can be described as “controlled”, says Gokhan Cinkara, director of Necmettin Erbakan University’s Global and Regional Studies Centre in Turkiye.

“At present, the riskiest scenario for Turkiye would be an uncontrolled outbreak of intergroup conflict in Syria. For this reason, Ankara is likely advising the new Syrian administration to act with a degree of rational pragmatism,” Cinkara told Al Jazeera.

“The immaturity of Syria’s security apparatus makes any potential intergroup clashes harder to contain, and risks turning it into protracted ethnic and sectarian conflicts. In the short term, therefore, adopting a unitary model seems difficult,” he added.

Red lines and risks

Netanyahu, for his part, is pushing for a “Balkanised” Syria, divided along ethnic and religious lines, demanding the demilitarisation of much of southern Syria, mostly populated by the country’s Druze population.

That is a move that, if implemented, could light the touchpaper and ignite demands from members of other groups in the country, including the Kurds and Alawite, for their own tailored versions of de facto autonomy.

“Turkiye, however, has clear red lines in Syria,” says Murat Yesiltas, director of foreign policy research at SETA, a think tank in Ankara with close ties to the government.

“The US and Israel’s attempt to reshape the regional order carries various dangers and risks, deepening fragmentation in the Middle East,” Yesiltas told Al Jazeera.

In March, Israel’s most influential security think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), published a piece that warned against the nascent peace process between Turkiye and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is seeking to close a chapter on a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people.

The INSS warned that this could “weaken the ability of the Kurds in Syria to continue to operate autonomously” and contribute to Ankara “expanding its influence in southern Syria, in a way that could increase the threat to Israeli freedom of action”.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz made clear that swaths of newly occupied territory in southern Syria will be held for an “unlimited amount of time”.

As Turkiye scoped out potential military bases in Syria’s Homs province and the main airport in Hama province in coordination with the newly established Damascus government, Israel bombed the sites.

“If Tel Aviv persists on this path, a conflict between Ankara and Tel Aviv will become inevitable. Turkiye cannot accept policies that perpetuate instability on its southern border,” said Yesiltas.

But full-blown rivalry is “not inevitable” as both sides recognise the costs of confrontation, particularly given economic interdependence, Andreas Krieg, associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

“Israel’s threat to Turkiye is not conventional military aggression but rather the targeting of Turkish interests via indirect means,” said Krieg, speaking about Ankara’s interests in Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus.

Given Washington’s full and seemingly unconditional support for Netanyahu’s bid to “reshape the region”, Krieg says Ankara’s prescription is to “strengthen strategic deterrence, especially through expanded air-defence, missile systems and intelligence capabilities” and to pursue regional coalitions with Qatar, Jordan and Iraq while maintaining open channels with Washington to “avoid full strategic isolation”.

“Ankara must recognise that future flashpoints are more likely to emerge in the grey zone – covert operations, air strikes, and proxy competition – than in formal declarations or diplomacy,” he added.

A drone crashed into a hotel in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday, causing a fire but no casualties, authorities said. Yemen’s Houthi group, who have been firing drones and missiles in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says Israel must face the same sporting sanctions as Russia did after the Ukraine war.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has urged international sporting bodies to ban Israel from competitions, saying its treatment should mirror Russia’s exclusion after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Speaking to his Socialist Party on Monday, Sanchez said Israel’s participation in global events was incompatible with its assault on Gaza.

“The sports organisations should consider whether it’s ethical for Israel to keep participating in international competitions. Why expel Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and not expel Israel after the invasion of Gaza?” he asked. “Until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be in any international competition.”

His remarks came a day after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the closing stage of the Vuelta a Espana cycling race in Madrid, throwing barriers onto the course in protest at the participation of the Israeli team Israel-Premier Tech. Police clashed with demonstrators near the finish line, leaving 22 people injured and arresting two.

Last week, Spanish Sports Minister Pilar Alegria said Israeli teams should be banned from sport in the same way that Russian sides broadly were in 2022 after the country invaded Ukraine, highlighting a “double standard”.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar lashed out at Sanchez, calling him an “anti-Semite and a liar”, without elaborating on why the criticism of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza was anti-Semitic. Israel has been accused of weaponising anti-Semitism to target criticism of Israel’s policies against Palestinians.

Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the International Criminal Court anti-Semitic after the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes.

Tensions between Madrid and Tel Aviv have sharpened in recent months, with Spain’s left-leaning coalition openly backing activists who staged demonstrations during several stages of the Vuelta against the Israeli team’s presence.

Weapons deal with Israel cancelled

Spain is also reportedly planning to scrap a major weapons deal with an Israeli defence manufacturer. According to official documents seen by AFP, Madrid cancelled a contract worth nearly 700 million euros ($824m) for rocket systems designed by Israeli firm Elbit Systems.

The deal, signed in October 2023, involved the purchase of Elbit’s PULS rocket launchers, known in Spain as SILAM. Its cancellation brings the total value of Israeli arms contracts annulled by Spain in recent months to nearly one billion euros ($1.2bn). A previous agreement in June, reportedly with defence company Rafael, was also halted.

Neither Elbit nor Rafael has formally commented, though the Israeli daily Haaretz, which also reported the cancellation, quoted a source as saying that no official notification of cancellation had yet been received. Neither government has confirmed the move publicly.

Al Jazeera, however, could not independently verify the reports.

Spanish media reported that Madrid is exploring ways to distance its defence industry from reliance on Israeli technology. La Vanguardia said officials are studying a plan with Spain’s main arms producers to replace the Israeli systems affected by the embargo.

Last week, Sanchez unveiled nine measures aimed at ramping up pressure on Israel, including banning docking and overflight rights for ships and planes carrying weapons to the country. The prime minister framed the steps as part of Spain’s responsibility to push for an end to what he described as Israel’s “barbarity” in Gaza.

Other steps include banning imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Sanchez pledging 10 million euros ($11.8m) in new funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and a total of 150 million euros ($176m) in humanitarian aid for Gaza by 2026.

Leaders from across the region are gathering in the Qatari capital to discuss a formal response to Israel’s strikes on Doha last week, which it said targeted Hamas leadership and reverberated through the Middle East and beyond.

Israel launched the missiles as Hamas members gathered in their Doha office to discuss a deal proposed by United States President Donald Trump to end Israel’s two-year genocidal war on Gaza.

The attack came hours after Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed Israel had accepted the Trump proposal, which would release all 48 captives held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and a ceasefire.

Israel killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security official in the attack, although it did not kill the Hamas leadership it said it was targeting.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the attack on Thursday.

How is Qatar responding?

Qatar has invited leaders from Arab and Islamic countries for meetings that will culminate in the emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Majed bin Mohammed al-Ansari told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that “the summit will discuss a draft resolution on the Israeli attack” that signifies another instance of “state terrorism practised by Israel”.

A meeting of foreign ministers on Sunday will work on the draft, which is expected to add to the international chorus of condemnation for the Israeli attack.

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who met Trump in New York on Friday, said Qatar will pursue a collective response to the attack, which has put the entire region at risk.

Qatar has long had a mediation role, working to end Israel’s war on Gaza and generate regional unity.

In the meetings on Sunday and Monday, it will leverage pro-Palestinian sentiment and opposition to Israel’s attacks that have been expressed across the region.

Who is attending?

Leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the 22-member Arab League will attend.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is confirmed to attend, as are Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

On Saturday, Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani issued what he called a “warning to Islamic governments” and said they must “form a ‘joint operations room’ against the madness” of Israel instead of resorting to mere statements.

The full list of dignitaries in attendance on Monday is yet to be confirmed.

What can come out of the summit?

At the summit, a strongly worded statement against Israel is guaranteed.

The leaders will discuss potential ways they could take action to address Israeli aggression across the region.

Israel has also bombed Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen as its genocidal war on Gaza and military raids on the occupied West Bank continue relentlessly.

The sense of security enjoyed by Qatar and neighbouring states has been shattered, which could prompt them to seek new security or defence arrangements with the US that go beyond buying arms.

There are political considerations at play, however, especially with Washington still offering ironclad support to Israel despite growing international frustration.

As ministers and leaders arrived in Doha on Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top leaders. Among other things, they are likely to discuss plans to annex large parts of the West Bank.

That plan has been described by the United Arab Emirates, a member of the US-sponsored Abraham Accords to normalise ties with Israel, as a “red line” that would undermine the agreement.

Saudi Arabia and other regional states being eyed by Israel and the US as future members of the Accords are seen by analysts to be the furthest they have been for years from normalising relations with Israel.

Among the tools that states have at their disposal to respond to rogue aggression are acts like downgrading diplomatic ties.

Arab states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE also have vast financial capabilities at their disposal as leverage, as well as large sovereign wealth funds with international investments that could impose curbs on Israel, including trade limitations.

Qatar has said part of its response will be legal, including through pursuing Israeli violations of international law.

Activists from 40 countries sail from Tunisia to defy Israel’s blockade and deliver aid to Gaza.

An international convoy of boats, the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), has set sail from Tunisia, aiming to defy Israel’s siege on Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid.

The GSF, which departed Bizerte Port on Saturday, includes more than 40 vessels carrying between 500 and 700 activists from more than 40 countries, according to Anadolu.

Participants say they are determined to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Among those joining is Franco-Palestinian lawmaker Rima Hassan, a member of the French National Assembly, who announced her participation after boarding in Tunisia.

“Our governments are responsible for the continuation of the genocide in Gaza,” Hassan wrote on X, accusing European leaders of silence in the face of Israeli attacks on aid convoys. In June, she joined another Gaza-bound boat that Israeli forces seized in international waters.

he flotilla is supported by prominent activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, who has long been vilified by Israeli officials for her solidarity with Palestinians.

The flotilla reported this week that two of its ships – the Family, which had members of the steering committee on board, and the Alma – were attacked while anchored near Tunis.

Activists suspect Israeli involvement, noting that one of the vessels was struck by a drone.

Tunisia’s Ministry of the Interior confirmed a “premeditated aggression” and said an investigation had been launched.

Despite the attacks, flotilla organisers insist they will press ahead. “Faced with this inaction, I am joining this citizens’ initiative, which is the largest humanitarian maritime convoy ever undertaken,” Hassan said.

History of intervention

This is not the first time Israel has moved to stop such missions.

In early June, Israeli naval forces intercepted the Madleen ship in international waters, seizing its aid supplies and detaining the crew of 12 activists. Another vessel, the Conscience, was struck by drones in May near Maltese waters, leaving it unable to continue its journey.

Organisers say the GSF – named after the Arabic word for resilience – represents one of the boldest challenges yet to Israel’s control of Gaza’s coastline.

The attempt comes as the United Nations warns of famine in Gaza, with more than half a million people facing catastrophic hunger.

Prior to talks with Trump, Sheikh Mohammed met US Secretary of State Rubio, who is heading to Israel to pledge continued support.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is meeting United States President Donald Trump in New York in the wake of Israel’s deadly strike on Doha this week.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the country’s foreign minister, has been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity in the US since Israel’s attack on a Hamas meeting in Doha on Tuesday, which killed a Qatari security official and five Hamas members who were discussing a new deal proposed by Trump to end the Gaza war.

Ahead of Friday’s dinner meeting with the US president, Sheikh Mohammed met US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, where they discussed Israel’s strikes and the US-Qatar security arrangement, according to Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett.

Washington counts Qatar, which hosts its Al Udeid airbase in the desert outside Doha, as a strong Gulf ally.

Trump has already said he was “very unhappy” about Israel’s targeting of Qatar, which appeared designed to derail ongoing Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks.

“The concern is that the relationship between Qatar and the United States has become increasingly complicated as a result of those strikes, so they’re looking for a path forward on both of those issues,” said Al Jazeera’s Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC.

Halkett said Friday’s scheduled meeting with Trump would “continue the conversations regarding Israel’s attack on Doha earlier this week and the negotiations to end Israel’s war on Gaza”.

The location and time of the dinner remain unclear, but Trump is currently in New York and is staying at his eponymous Manhattan tower.

Balancing act

This week has also seen the Trump administration engaged in a balancing act between Middle East allies and Israel.

The issue was brought to the fore on Thursday, when the US – which traditionally shields Israel on the international stage – joined fellow members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the country for its attack on Qatar.

But in what appears to be a show of continued support for Israel, Rubio will arrive in Israel this weekend for a two-day visit before attending an upcoming UN summit on September 22, where a number of Western countries plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

That meeting signals growing international momentum towards a viable post-conflict settlement for Israel and Palestine, which was manifest at Friday’s meeting of the UN General Assembly, which endorsed a resolution pushing for a revival of the two-state solution.

France and Saudi Arabia have been instrumental in pushing for “collective action to end the war in Gaza, to achieve a just, peaceful and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, which has so far killed at least 64,756 people.

During his visit to Israel, Rubio will speak to leaders about “our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions, including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism”, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

“He will also emphasise our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home,” Pigott added.

Anti-Muslim incidents in person have increased by 150 percent – and by 250 percent online — according to an independent report.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said his government will “carefully consider” the recommendations of an independent report which found that anti-Muslim incidents in the country have “skyrocketed” since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.

During a media briefing at the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney on Friday, Albanese said targeting Australians based on their religious beliefs was an attack on the country’s core values.

“Australians should be able to feel safe at home in any community … we must stamp out the hate, fear and prejudice that drives Islamophobia and division in our society,” he said.

Aftab Malik, who has been serving as the government’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia since last October, was appointed to the three-year role to recommend steps to prevent anti-Muslim hatred. The appointment came as Australia had been experiencing a surge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

The independent report, released on Friday and Malik’s first since assuming the position, said the normalisation of Islamophobia has become so widespread in Australia that many incidents are not even getting reported.

“The reality is that Islamophobia in Australia has been persistent, at times ignored and other times denied, but never fully addressed,” said Malik, appearing alongside Albanese.

“We have seen public abuse, graffiti … we have seen Muslim women and children targeted, not for what they have done, but for who they are and what they wear.”

The 60-page report’s 54 recommendations to the government include a review of counterterrorism laws and procedures to investigate potential discrimination.

Malik also recommended a wide-ranging inquiry into Islamophobia to investigate its main drivers and potential discrimination in government policies.

Islamophobia had intensified since the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and had become entrenched, said Malik.

Islamophobic incidents in person had skyrocketed by 150 percent — and by 250 percent online — since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Malik said.

The Australian government has acknowledged steep rises in both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.

Jillian Segal was appointed envoy to combat anti-Semitism in July 2024.

Segal recommended, in her first report two months ago, that Australian universities lose government funding unless they address attacks on Jewish students, and that potential migrants be screened for political affiliations.

According to the 2021 Australian Census, 3.2 percent of the Australian population is Muslim.

Islamophobia has also risen across Europe, fuelled by political parties touting a populist anti-immigration stance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has officially moved forward with a settlement expansion plan in the occupied West Bank that would make any future Palestinian state virtually impossible.

The Israeli leader signed an agreement on Thursday to move ahead with the project, which would bisect the West Bank.

“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu said at the event in Maale Adumim, an Israeli settlement just east of Jerusalem.

“We are going to double the city’s population.”

The settlement, on a 12sq-km (4.6sq-mile) tract of land east of Jerusalem, is known as “East 1” or “E1”.

The development plan, which includes 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, would cut off much of the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem while linking up thousands of Israeli settlements in the area.

East Jerusalem carries particular significance to Palestinians as their choice for the capital of a future Palestinian state.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

Reporting for Al Jazeera from Amman, Jordan, because Israel has banned Al Jazeera from the West Bank and Israel, Hamdah Salhut explained that this expansion is controversial because it destroys any territorial continuity from the West Bank to East Jerusalem, further dismantling any possibility that there could be a Palestinian state in the future.

Palestinian leaders push back

Palestinian Authority presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh on Thursday insisted that a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is the key to peace in the region. He called it and the two-state solution “inevitable” despite Netanyahu’s move.

Rudeineh condemned Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and accused Netanyahu of “pushing the entire region towards the abyss”.

He noted that 149 United Nations member states have already recognised Palestine and called on all countries that have not yet done so to recognise a Palestinian state immediately.

How did we get here?

Netanyahu has long championed settlements in occupied Palestinian territory and fought any efforts towards peace between Israel and Palestine. He railed against the signing of the Oslo Accords, two agreements in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that many hoped would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

“I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu was caught on video boasting in 2001.

In 1997 during his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu helped establish the settlement of Har Homa in East Jerusalem, CNN reported. He added in an interview with the Israeli news site NRG that a Palestinian state would never be formed while he was in office.

More recently, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said settlements such as E1 will help erase Palestine from the map, even as Palestinian statehood gains increasing recognition from UN member states.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” Smotrich said.

The UN General Assembly demanded in September 2024 that Israel end its presence in the West Bank by withdrawing its military, immediately stopping work on new settlements and evacuating settlers from occupied land.

More than 100 nations voted for the resolution. Fourteen voted against.

The vote followed an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in July 2024 that said Israel’s continued presence in occupied territory was unlawful and Israel was “under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the occupied Palestinian Territory”.

Netanyahu called the opinion a “decision of lies”.

More recently, 21 countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan, condemned Israel’s plan to build its new settlement.

Germany announced on Thursday that it will back a France-led proposal for a two-state solution, the Bloomberg news agency reported. Berlin is planning to support a UN resolution this week to adopt the New York Declaration, led by France and Saudi Arabia and calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and a right to return for refugees.

Belgium, France and Malta have pledged to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly session this month. Other countries, including Australia, Canada and the UK, have announced conditional recognitions, but it has remained unclear whether they will do so at the gathering.

The situation in the West Bank and Gaza

The settlement expansion news comes amid escalating violence.

On Monday, six people were killed in a shooting attack in Jerusalem when two Palestinian gunmen attacked a bus stop at the Ramot Junction. Several others were wounded.

Israeli forces responded by storming towns and demolishing the homes of the Palestinian suspects in the West Bank.

Al Jazeera reported on Thursday that nearly 100 men were arrested in Tulkarem in the West Bank. The arrests came after an attack that “lightly wounded two soldiers,” Haaretz reported, quoting the Israeli army.

In Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed at least 64,656 people and wounded 163,503 since it began in October 2023, Netanyahu is continuing to push “voluntary migration“, a euphemism for forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s latest forced displacement order for Gaza City is one too many for Nahd al-Rafati. He is refusing to leave, weary of what seems like a never-ending cycle of expulsion.

Spain’s Vuelta cycling event has added extra security following pro-Palestine protests against Israel-Premier Tech.

Spanish Sports Minister Pilar Alegria has said Israeli teams should be banned from sport in the same way that Russian sides broadly were in 2022 after the country invaded Ukraine, highlighting a “double standard”.

The presence of a team named Israel-Premier Tech at the Vuelta a Espana cycling grand tour has led to huge protests in Spain. The Spanish government has described Israel’s offensive in Gaza as “a genocide”.

Israel-Premier Tech is a private outfit owned by billionaire Israeli-Canadian property developer Sylvan Adams, not a state team, but has been hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to quit the Vuelta despite vehement protests.

“It is difficult to explain and understand that there is a double standard,” Alegria told Spanish radio station Cadena SER.

“Given that there has been such a massacre, a genocide, such an absolutely terrible situation we are living through day-by-day, I would agree that the international federations and committees should take the same decision as in 2022,” she added.

“No team, no club from Russia participated in an international competition, and when the individuals participated, they did it under a neutral flag and without a national anthem.”

Alegria said she would like Vuelta organisers to block Israel-Premier Tech from competing, but accepted that such a decision could only be taken by the cycling world governing body, UCI.

Various stages of the Vuelta have been affected by protests, with stages 11 and 16 shortened during racing, while Thursday’s stage 18 time trial has also been cut short in advance for security reasons.

Alegria said she hopes the race can be completed, with Sunday’s final stage heading into Madrid expected to be targeted by various protests.

“It would not be good news if the race cannot finish,” said Alegria.

“However, what we’re seeing these days with the protests is, in my opinion, logical,” she added.

“[The protests] are a clear representation of what the people feel, sport cannot be distanced from the world that surrounds it.”

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government has taken one of Europe’s strongest pro-Palestinian stances, straining ties with Israel.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for an unprecedented cross-border attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,139 people, most of whom were civilians.

Israel’s bombardment has killed at least 64,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza.

“[Israeli forces] have killed more than 60,000 people; children, babies [are] starving to death, hospitals destroyed,” added Alegria.

“So it is important that sport, given this situation, takes a position at least similar to what it did against Russia.”

Downing Street later stressed that ‘the UK and Israel are longstanding allies’ despite their differences.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has criticised Israel’s “man-made famine” in Gaza following a controversial meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in London.

“They must stop the man-made famine from worsening further by letting aid in and halting their offensive operations,” a Downing Street spokesperson said following the meeting on Wednesday.

Starmer “implored Israel to change course” in Gaza, the spokesperson said.

The rare rebuke marks one of Starmer’s strongest criticisms of Israel since taking office in July 2024. It also comes as aid groups warn that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic hunger after nearly two years of bombardment and blockade.

Herzog’s visit to London drew widespread criticism in the United Kingdom, with thousands demonstrating outside Downing Street for a second consecutive day, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Protesters also gathered at the London-based think tank Chatham House, banging pots and pans as Herzog delivered a speech.

“There’s a genocide happening and the president of that country is in our country and being welcomed here, when nobody is happy about it,” a protester told Al Jazeera.

“This is not diplomacy,” said another protester.

“You are aiding and abetting a genocide – and this man is not welcome in our country.”

The meeting between Herzog and Starmer came a day after Israel launched an air strike on Qatar, a close ally of the United States and the UK, that targeted a Hamas leadership delegation.

The Downing Street spokesperson said Starmer told Herzog the strike on Doha was “unacceptable” and condemned it as “a flagrant violation of a key partner’s sovereignty”.

Despite the sharp words, the spokesperson added that “the UK and Israel are longstanding allies”.

Speaking after his meeting with Starmer, Herzog confirmed the two leaders had “argued out of respect”.

“Things were said that were tough and strong,” Herzog said, adding, “Clearly, we can argue, because when allies meet, they can argue. We are both democracies.”

Herzog also said that he had invited the UK to send “a fact-finding mission” to Israel “to study the situation in Gaza on the humanitarian level”.

Herzog previously said publicly that the “entire [Palestinian] nation” was responsible for the October 7 attacks on Israel, and two months later, he was witnessed personally signing artillery shells due to be fired into Gaza.

In parliament earlier on Wednesday, Scottish National Party leader Stephen Flynn asked: “What does it say of this prime minister that he will harbour this man whilst children starve?”

Starmer defended his decision to meet Herzog, rejecting calls to cut diplomatic ties. “I will not give up on diplomacy,” he said.

“That is the politics of students.”

The European Union will implement new measures against Israel and further raise support for Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.

In her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, von der Leyen condemned the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic”, announcing plans to cut support for Israel and implement sanctions.

She also noted plans to further raise support for Ukraine, urging EU members – some of which are likely to be unenthusiastic – to rally behind the measures on both issues.

“Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity, this must stop,” the EU chief declared.

The proposed “package of measures” includes sanctions on “extremist Israeli ministers” and settlers, a suspension of bilateral support for Israel, and a suspension of the EU’s association agreement with Israel, which gives it preferential access to European markets.

“Europe needs to do more,” said von der Leyen, adding that while she would attempt to move the bloc in unison, EU member states also needed to take “our own responsibility” on the issue.

“Europe’s goal has always been the same. Real security for Israel and a safe, present future for all Palestinians,” she said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar was quick to slam the EU chief and claimed that she was offering support to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas.

“The remarks made this morning by the President of the European Commission are regrettable. Some of them also echo the false propaganda of Hamas and its partners,” Saar wrote on social media. “Once again, Europe is sending the wrong message, which strengthens Hamas and the radical axis in the Middle East.”

Reparations and returns for Ukraine

Regarding Ukraine, von der Leyen said she was proposing a summit to coordinate international efforts to secure the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.

The use of frozen Russian assets to fund a “reparations loan” for Ukraine was also put forward in the speech, although von der Leyen said the bloc would not seize the assets itself.

The address came shortly after Polish and NATO forces shot down Russian drones that had violated Poland’s airspace. The EU chief branded Moscow’s actions “reckless and unprecedented”.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU has imposed 18 rounds of sanctions on it, targeting its economy, individuals and key sectors such as fuel, as well as nearly 140 billion euros ($164bn) in support to Ukraine, including financial, humanitarian, and military assistance.

Von der Leyen said as the EU prepares its 19th package of sanctions against Moscow, it will seek to accelerate efforts to phase out all purchases of Russian fossil fuels, as well as sanctioning the shadow oil shipping fleet used to circumvent such measures and any third countries involved.

Coalition of the unwilling?

However, Brussels is likely to encounter obstacles to such ambitions. Unanimous agreement is required to impose sanctions, and Hungary and Slovakia remain dependent on Russian energy and have blocked previous actions.

The 27-member bloc also remains divided over action regarding Israel’s war on Gaza, which started after Hamas led deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Sanctions and the suspension of the trade agreement would require the approval of all 27 states, and could meet resistance from the likes of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany.

Other member states, such as Spain or Ireland, have been calling for economic curbs and an arms embargo against Israel for some time.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said the “double standards” demonstrated by the West over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza threaten to undermine its global standing.

However, other member states have obstructed efforts to take action and continue to supply the Israeli military with arms and equipment.

Ranging into other topics, von der Leyen defended the much-criticised tariffs deal she agreed recently with Washington, saying it stabilised ties with the United States at a time of soaring global tensions and averted trade war “chaos”.

She also asserted that the EU needs a new sanctions system targeting people smugglers and traffickers, adding it should be part of measures allowing the bloc to manage migration “effectively”.

Israel’s attack that killed six in Doha draws criticism from across the world as Israeli troops continue to bombard Gaza.

Israel’s military described its attack on a residential complex in central Doha, Qatar, as a “precise” attack.

In an official statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian movement Hamas said the attack killed five of its members, and a Qatari officer, but did not eliminate its negotiating delegation or any of its senior leadership.

Here is what we know about the victims, and the senior leaders who were targeted – but who appear to have survived the attack:

Who is Khalil al-Hayya?

Reports say the strike targeted senior Hamas figures, including Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator.

Al-Hayya rose in importance after the killings of top Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, and military commander Mohammed Deif last year. Sinwar, who had taken charge in Gaza after Haniyeh’s death, was killed later in 2024.

With those losses, al-Hayya is now one of five leaders steering Hamas’s leadership council.

The leadership council refers to the temporary, five-member ruling committee that was formed in late 2024 to govern the group during the war.

Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya has been part of Hamas since it was set up in 1987, but he became especially important on the diplomatic front, based mainly in Qatar, which became the main hub for mediation with other countries, including Israel, Egypt, and the United States.

Operating outside Gaza allowed him to travel and coordinate between neighbouring countries without the constraints of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Al-Hayya has also led Hamas’s delegations in mediated talks with Israel to try to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal.

Al-Hayya’s own family have suffered as a result of Israeli attacks: During the 2014 war, an Israeli strike destroyed the house of his eldest son, Osama, killing him, his wife, and three of their children, and during Tuesday’s attack, his son, Humam, was also killed.

But he stressed that the loss of any lives is tragic. “The blood of the leadership of the movement is like the blood of any Palestinian child,” he told Al Jazeera.

Who else is believed to be targeted and who was killed during the attack?

Zaher Jabarin is believed to also have been a target of Israel’s attack. He currently serves as the movement’s chief financial administrator.

Earlier in 1993, Israel arrested Jabarin and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He spent almost two decades in prison before being released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange.

Following his release, Jabarin rose quickly through Hamas ranks. He became head of the group’s financial bureau, managing and overseeing an extensive investment and funding network. He currently also heads Hamas in the occupied West Bank, and he is one of the five members of the leadership council.

The leaders assassinated during Israel’s attack in Qatar also include:

• Jihad Labad – director of al-Hayya’s office
• Humam al-Hayya – al-Hayya’s son
• Abdullah Abdul Wahid – bodyguard
• Moamen Hassouna – bodyguard
• Ahmed al-Mamluk – bodyguard

The sixth person killed, according to Qatar, was Corporal Bader Saad Mohammed al-Humaidi al-Dosari, a member of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya).

Who are the current leaders of Hamas?

With many of Hamas’s leadership killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the group formed a five-man leadership council – which includes al-Hayya and Jabarin – and also has a senior military figure in Gaza itself.

Izz al-Din al-Haddad

Al-Haddad became the most senior Hamas military leader in the Gaza Strip after Sinwar’s death. Israel considers him one of the masterminds behind October 7 and has placed him on its most-wanted list. He is not a member of the five-man leadership council.

Khaled Meshaal

Khaled Meshaal, 68, has been a senior political leader of Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, since the 1990s. He became known when Israeli agents attempted to inject a slow-acting lethal chemical into his ear on a public street in Jordan, but the operation was botched, and the men were soon arrested. He is now based in Qatar, serving on the leadership council.

“It is true that in reality, there will be an entity or a state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land,” Meshaal has said. “But I won’t deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it.”

Mohammad Darwish

He is also based in Qatar, and is the nominal head of Hamas’s leadership council. According to reports, in early 2025, he met Turkiye’s President Erdogan and publicly endorsed the idea of a technocratic or national unity government for post-war Gaza.

Nizar Awadallah

Awadallah is a long-time Hamas leader. He is seen as one of Hamas’s original members and has held several important positions, including in its armed wing. Since the October 7 attacks, he has not spoken publicly or appeared in the media.

As the world’s attention was focused on Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Israeli forces continued their unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 50 people on Tuesday.

Among the dead are nine Palestinians, who had gathered in the enclave’s south seeking aid. Israel pressed on with its offensive in Gaza City after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Palestinians to flee to the south for their lives.

The Wafa news agency reported that a drone strike on a makeshift tent sheltering displaced families at Gaza’s port killed two civilians and injured others. Warplanes also hit several residential buildings, including four homes in the al-Mukhabarat area and the Zidan building northwest of Gaza City, it reported.

Another house was reportedly bombed in the Talbani neighbourhood of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, while two young men were killed in an attack on civilians in the az-Zarqa area of Tuffah, northeast of Gaza City.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency confirmed footage showing an Israeli strike on the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque in Deir el-Balah. The video captured a flash of light before the mosque’s minaret was enveloped in smoke. Despite the blast, the minaret appeared to remain standing.

Israel issued new evacuation threats on Monday, releasing maps warning Palestinians to leave a highlighted building and nearby tents on Jamal Abdel Nasser Street in Gaza City or face death. It told residents to move to the so-called “humanitarian area” in al-Mawasi, a barren stretch of coast in southern Gaza.

But al-Mawasi itself has been repeatedly bombed, despite Israel insisting it is a safe zone. At the start of the year, about 115,000 people lived there. Today, aid agencies estimate that more than 800,000 people – nearly a third of Gaza’s population – are crammed into overcrowded makeshift camps.

Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described al-Mawasi as a vast camp “concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair”.

“There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone. Warnings of famine have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

The Palestinian Civil Defence warned that “Gaza City is burning, and humanity is being annihilated”.

The rescue agency said that in just 72 hours, five high-rise towers containing more than 200 apartments were destroyed, leaving thousands of people homeless.

More than 350 tents sheltering displaced families were also flattened, it added, forcing nearly 7,600 people to sleep in the open, “struggling against death, hunger, and unbearable heat”.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 20,000 of them children, in the Israeli offensive, which has been dubbed a genocide by numerous scholars and activists. The International Criminal Court has also issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

‘The crime of forced displacement’

The Government Media Office in Gaza said that more than 1.3 million people remain in Gaza City and surrounding areas, despite Israeli attempts to push them south. It described the evacuation orders as an effort to carry out “the crime of forced displacement in violation of all international laws”.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times in 23 months of genocidal war, and an Israeli curb on aid entry, including food items, has led to starvation deaths. Last month, a UN agency declared famine in Gaza, affecting half a million people.

On Tuesday morning, Palestinians in central Gaza staged a protest against the latest evacuation orders.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said that demonstrators carried banners reading, “We will not leave”, and “Not going out”.

“The primary goal of the [Israeli] occupation is displacement,” said Bajees al-Khalidi, a displaced Palestinian at the protest. “But there’s no place left, not in the south, nor the north. We’ve become completely trapped.”

Violence also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces killed two teenagers in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.

Mourners on Tuesday buried 14-year-old Islam Noah, who was shot while attempting to enter the besieged refugee camp. A funeral was also held for another 14-year-old, Muhammad Alawneh. Two others were wounded in the same incident.

Israel targets Hamas leaders

Israel sent missiles at Doha as Hamas leaders were meeting in the Qatari capital for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal from the United States to end the war in Gaza. Hamas said five people were killed, while Qatar said a security official was also among the dead. Hamas said its leadership survived the assassination attempt.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani condemned Israel’s “reckless criminal attack” in a phone call with US President Donald Trump. Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called the attack “state terrorism”.

The Qatari prime minister said Doha would continue to work to end Israel’s war on Gaza, but raised doubts about the viability of the most recent talks. “When it comes to the current talks, I don’t think there is something valid right now after we’ve seen such an attack,” he said.

Qatar has sent a letter to the UN Security Council, condemning what it calls a cowardly Israeli assault on residential buildings in Doha.

The Doha attack has drawn global condemnation, with the UN chief calling it a “flagrant violation” of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.

The White House claimed that the US had warned Qatar of the impending strike, but Doha rejected that account, insisting the warning came only after the bombing had begun.

Trump later said he felt “very badly about the location of the attack” and that he had assured Qatar that it would not happen again.

“This was a decision made by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was not a decision made by me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “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.”

Washington, DC – The administration of US President Donald Trump has said it notified Qatari officials before Israel’s attack on Hamas negotiators in Doha, a claim refuted by the Gulf country.

The statement from the White House on Tuesday came hours after the strike on a residential area in the Gulf country’s capital, Doha. Qatar has been a lead mediator in US-backed ceasefire talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

“The Trump administration was notified by the United States military that Israel was attacking Hamas, which very unfortunately, was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“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,” she said. “However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

Leavitt added that Trump directed his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to “inform the Qataris of the impending attack”.

However, Qatar refuted the characterisation, with a spokesperson for the foreign ministry saying claims that the government had been “pre-informed of the attack are completely false”.

“The call that was received from an American official came during the sound of the explosions that resulted from the Israeli attack in Doha,” Majed Al-Ansari wrote in a statement on X.

Hamas said the attack killed five of its members, but its main negotiating team survived. Among the dead was a Qatari security officer, the country’s interior ministry said. Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decried the Israeli attack as “cowardly”, while condemning “any action targeting its security and sovereignty”.

The Gulf country had previously helped to broker a pause in fighting in Gaza in November 2023 and a six-week ceasefire in January 2025. Its role had been regularly praised by both the administration of former President Joe Biden and President Trump.

Israel struck central Doha just days after Trump issued a warning to Hamas’s negotiating team as he pushed for a new ceasefire. The US has repeatedly accused Hamas of stalling negotiations. Israel has been accused of repeatedly scuttling the talks.

“The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.

“I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”

Following the attack, Hamas said those targeted had been discussing Trump’s latest proposal.

The group added the strike “confirms beyond doubt that Netanyahu and his government do not want to reach any agreement and are deliberately seeking to thwart all opportunities and thwart international efforts”.

“We hold the US administration jointly responsible with the occupation for this crime, due to its ongoing support for the aggression and crimes of the occupation against our people,” the group said.

Leavitt, meanwhile, told reporters that Trump “believes this unfortunate incident could serve as an opportunity for peace”.

She said Trump also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the strike, but did not say if he threatened any actions against the close US ally, as well as Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

‘Reduced to nothing’

Despite the White House statement, Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC, many countries and residents in the region will still view the Trump administration as complicit.

“When Israel is given a green light to basically wreak havoc over the region and violate international law, violate sovereignty of nations that are not even enemies, but actually very close allies of the United States, one has to wonder: Where does Israel stand, and why would Israel be allowed to do that?” he said.

Qatar, which has remained a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights, was designated a “major non-NATO ally” in 2022, a status the US Department of State describes as being a “powerful symbol” of close strategic ties and a demonstration of “deep respect for the friendship for the countries to which it is extended”.

Jahshan said the honorific, in the wake of Israel’s strike, has been “reduced to nothing”.

“If that status allows you to be exposed to attacks from a US ally with a US green light. Then, to me, I would rather not have friends like this,” he said.

Qatar also houses Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military installation in the Middle East. Along with the US Air Force, the base houses the Qatar Emiri Air Force, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, and a total of about 10,000 personnel.

The country has also positioned itself as a diplomatic asset to the US and other Western powers, for years hosting political offices of groups significant to their foreign policy, including Hamas and the Taliban. Qatari officials have said they agreed to host the Hamas office more than a decade ago at the behest of Washington.

Nabeel Khoury, who formerly served as the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Yemen, said the location of Tuesday’s strike, in the heart of Doha and just kilometres from Al Udeid left him stunned.

“As cynical as I am and as used as I am to Israeli excesses, I have to say I was shocked,” he said. “I think everybody should be shocked and should be woken up from whatever dream they’re in to the reality that Israel has now obviously become a totally rogue state.”

Khoury said the strike would likely chill diplomacy, further undermining US credibility in the region and giving pause to any groups or allies considering participating in US-backed negotiations.

“Honestly, I don’t see how anybody, especially in the Arab world, can continue to deal with the US,” Khoury said.

Jahshan added that Qatar’s neighbours, including the UAE, which normalised relations with Israel in 2020, in Saudi Arabia, which has long been eyed as a crown jewel in Israeli-Arab normalisation, will feel pressure to take a strong stance.

“If they allow one of them to be the target of such an attack, then they’re all targets for such attacks in the future,” he said. “How do they proceed?”