Israel was entirely justified in strike at Hamas leaders in Qatar, insisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that the group’s billionaire senior officials are the primary obstacle to ending the war in Gaza.

“The Hamas terrorist chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza. They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks. “Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.”

Netanyahu tied the audacious Israeli strike on Doha last week directly to the October 7, 2023 massacre, in which Hamas gunmen stormed Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and abducting more than 250.

“These are the same terrorists who planned, launched and celebrated the horrific massacres of October 7: the savage murder of 1,200 people, the beheading of men, the rape and murder of women, the burning of babies, the taking of over 250 hostages,” he said. “They perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

Netanyahu added that the targeted Hamas officials had been meeting in the very location where they previously “celebrated this savagery almost two years ago.” He framed the strike as fulfillment of a promise made at the start of the war: “At the beginning of the war, I promised that Israel would reach those who perpetrated this horror. And today, Israel and I have kept that promise.”

Israeli officials have since cautioned that it remains unclear whether the strike eliminated all of its intended targets. Intelligence assessments are still ongoing, with some sources expressing skepticism that the Hamas leadership cadre was fully neutralized.

The Qatar strike marks one of the boldest Israeli operations outside Gaza since the war began, underscoring Netanyahu’s insistence that the conflict will not end until Hamas’s senior command is dismantled.

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