Smoke spirals over Doha, a black column slicing the skyline of glass towers and white stone. Israeli jets, for the first time, have crossed Qatari airspace. Israel says it attacked Hamas peace negotiators. Qatar calls it a cowardly attack on residential homes.
The city, a hub of diplomacy, a bridge for negotiations, is bombed. The AFP cameras catch the wreckage. Smoke hangs thick over crumbled buildings. Civilians live throughout the area. A Lebanese school lies nearby.
A Hamas official in Gaza confirms negotiators, discussing US President Donald Trump's latest truce offer were hit mid-talks.
But the echoes are familiar.
In 2010, UAE exposed an Israeli hit squad after Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room.
Forged passports, CCTV footage, diplomatic expulsions. Israel was forced to retreat. The Gulf was deemed too sensitive. That restraint has evaporated.
Less than two weeks after Israel's own military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, warned that "most of Hamas’s leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well," Doha was hit.
This is not just a strike on Hamas. It is a strike on sovereignty. International law is explicit. No state may attack another without Security Council approval or a case of direct self-defence. Israel had neither. Jets crossed borders, bombs fell, and left in silence.
The record stretches across decades. Palestinian land occupied since 1967, despite UN rulings. Settlements declared illegal by the International Court of Justice.
Lebanon's skies violated daily. Beirut was pounded in 2006 by Israel, with UN deeming attacks disproportionate. Syrian territory has been hit hundreds of times.
Iran's consulate in Damascus was blown apart in 2024 by Israel, despite protections under the Vienna Convention. Iraq's Osirak reactor destroyed in 1981, condemned as aggression by the Security Council.
Yemen bears scars, too.
July 2024, Operation Long Arm strikes Hudaida Port after a Houthi drone reaches Tel Aviv. Power knocked out. Civilians dead. Raids follow in September, December, January.
May 2025, parts of Sanaa Airport levelled. Ras Isa, Salif, Hudaida port hit. Hundreds killed. In August 2025, Israeli missiles rained on the presidential palace and fuel depots. Later that month, Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and senior commanders assassinated.
Israel calls it a decisive victory.
The toll is immense. Gaza alone, nearly 65,000 killed by Israel since October 7. Occupied West Bank under intensified raids. Illegal settlements expanding amid international denunciation.
Lebanon, 15,000 strikes, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, an October 2024 invasion that displaced a million.
Syria, scores of air strikes. Iran, bombed in June 2025 for over twelve days. Jordan, Egypt, Iraq — airspace violated.
September 9, 2025, Doha joins the list.
The pattern is clear. When sovereignty obstructs, it is ignored. When law restrains, it is dismissed.
Each Israeli strike beyond borders, each assassination, each act of impunity strips another layer from the fragile order built after 1945. Each city, each state, each civilian death signals that no space is safe.
Diplomacy meets violence
Doha is different only in its audacity. Qatar is a US ally. It hosts one of Washington's largest regional airbases. It is a broker relied upon by Israel’s own allies.
By bombing it, Israel signals that no capital is untouchable, that no alliance offers protection, that international norms can be erased on a timetable of its choosing.
From Gaza to Yemen, Lebanon to Doha, Israel's pattern is ruthless and unbroken. Occupation, assassination, air strikes, invasion. Civilians are counted as collateral.
Every act builds the same story: Israel acts with confidence that the world will absorb the fallout.
Every strike is a lesson that the rules of order, written after 1945, can be discarded when military objectives demand it.
Now Doha joins a grim roll call. Gaza, occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, now Qatar. Each place carries the marks of Israeli aggression.
Israel's Tuesday strike on Doha is more than a military calculation. It is a message to the region, to allies, to the world.
Sovereignty is negotiable. International law is paper.
