Netanyahu blows up Mossad's Doha channel
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Veteran Washington Post journalist David Ignatius reports that Israel gave Qatar a direct assurance that Hamas would not be targeted in the country, shortly before the IDF struck Doha on Tuesday.
Qatar had feared an attack after Eyal Zamir, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, warned on Aug. 31 that “most of the remaining Hamas’ leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well.” Qatar sought assurances from the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, and the White House that such an attack would not occur on Qatari soil. The pledges were given, and Tuesday’s strike “came as a total surprise,” a Qatari official told me.1
Back-channel intelligence diplomacy has long been a key Mossad function, and current chief David Barnea has been a central participant in long-running talks in Doha and elsewhere aimed at securing a ceasefire and hostage deal.
Senior Mossad officials are reported to have opposed Tuesday’s strike and Israel’s claim of responsibility mentioned only the IDF and Shin Bet. As the Times of Israel notes Mossad ‘would normally play a key role in a sensitive operation against terror figures outside of Israel or its immediate environs.’2
If the omission is an attempt to compartmentalise responsibility for the strike, it seems unlikely to work. A diplomat, even an intelligence diplomat, whose word cannot be relied on to protect his interlocutors is in a weak position to negotiate anything else.
This is not the first time that Israeli strikes have undermined the back-channel. A previous attack killed key Hamas negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran a year ago. The Doha strike represents a further escalation. It is hard to see how the diplomatic track can survive an attack on a meeting that was reportedly called, on the territory of an acknowledged mediator, to discuss a US ceasefire proposal.
As Ignatius notes, the strike narrows Israel’s future options. That is something governments usually seek to avoid, even amidst the most intense conflicts. Yet in doing so, Prime Minister Netanyahu may have strengthened his own position, by making it more difficult for anyone else to move Israel onto a different path.
David Ignatius, Netanyahu’s attack in Qatar just narrowed Israel’s options (gift link), Washington Post, 9 September 2025.
Israeli officials said to doubt success of strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Times of Israel, 10 September 2025.