Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar

The Israeli external intelligence agency, Mossad, was not in favour of the country’s strike on senior Hamas leaders in Qatar on Tuesday (September 9). According to a Washington Post report, the agency refused to carry out a planned ground operation to kill Hamas leaders.

Israel’s airstrike on Qatari soil was widely condemned, with Doha publicly calling it “state terrorism” and a betrayal of the mediation process. The timing of the attacks was questioned as they came during the ongoing talks in Qatar to free Israeli hostages from Gaza.

Let’s take a closer look.

Why Mossad did not carry out attack in Qatar

The Mossad spy agency was opposed to killing Hamas leaders in Qatar. Israel’s intelligence agency had rejected the plan it had prepared in recent weeks to send its agents on the ground to assassinate Hamas leaders, who were gathering in Doha, two Israelis familiar with the matter told Washington Post on condition of anonymity.

David Barnea, Mossad’s director, was against the killing partly due to concerns that such an operation would strain the relationship he and his agency had developed with the Qataris. Besides him, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Eyal Zamir and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi also opposed the plan.

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Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer supported the attack ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nitzan Alon, the senior IDF officer in charge of hostage negotiations, was not invited to a meeting on Monday to discuss the attack on Qatari soil as senior political leaders assumed he would not be in favour of a strike that might endanger hostages’ lives.

“This time, Mossad was unwilling to do it on the ground,” said one of the Israeli sources, adding that the agency saw Qatar as an important intermediary in talks with Hamas.

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Another Israeli familiar with the spy agency’s refusal said it questioned Netanyahu’s timing. “We can get them in one, two, or four years from now, and the Mossad knows how to do it,” the Israeli said. “Why do it now?”

A senior official in the know of talks on the hostage release-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas told Channel 12 that most of the defence establishment wanted the attack to be postponed. “The position was clear — there is a deal for the return of the hostages on the table, and the negotiations should be exhausted. Everyone understood the consequences for the hostages and that an operation like this at the current time could harm this possibility,” the official said.

Israel ‘failed’ to kill top Hamas leaders

With Mossad sitting this one out, Israel had to resort to an alternative option. It launched 15 fighter jets that fired 10 missiles in an attempt to kill the political leaders of Hamas in Doha on Tuesday.

Israel said the attack was carried out by the Air Force, along with the Shin Bet security service.

The airstrike failed to kill senior officials, including its acting leader Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas announced on Friday that al-Hayya, who is the group’s chief negotiator, performed funeral rites for his “martyred” son Hammam.

Hamas said a Qatari officer was among those killed. It identified the casualties as Jihad Labad, head of the office of top Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya; al-Hayya’s son; and three others described as “associates”: Abdallah Abd al-Wahid, Muamen Hassouna and Ahmad Abd al-Malek, as per Times of Israel. 

The Israeli security establishment is increasingly of the view that none of Hamas’s leadership was killed in the strike. It has been since examining whether the Palestinian militant group’s top brass was even in the building that was targeted, Channel 12 reported Friday evening.

It also said that Israel is considering the possibility that the Hamas leaders were in a different part of the building than the section targeted.

While there is no guarantee Mossad’s ground operation would have been a success, the agency’s operatives planted a bomb in the bedroom of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which killed him, last year.

Netanyahu was getting ‘impatient’?

Israel’s strike in Qatar has been denounced by several countries, including India, the United States, France, Germany and Britain.

US President Donald Trump criticised Israel’s strikes, saying that unilaterally striking inside Qatar “does not advance Israel or America’s goals”.

However, he added that “this unfortunate incident could serve as an opportunity for PEACE”, and that the elimination of Hamas was a “worthy goal”.

In a televised address, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said the strike was not only an attempt to kill the negotiating delegation, but an intentional blow to the entire process and a clear message rejecting any ceasefire deal. The Hamas leaders had gathered to consider Trump’s proposal to release hostages in Gaza for a ceasefire in the war.

Since the strikes in Doha, Qatari leaders have said they are “reassessing” their role in any future mediation talks.

Analysts say Israeli PM Netanyahu may have “lost patience” with the ceasefire negotiations.

“Barnea was known as someone who thought the Qatari mediation had value, and you don’t burn the Qatari mediators or the mediation channel,” David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told Washington Post. But Netanyahu “may have made up his mind that he’s going into Gaza City, believing the very latest negotiating proposal of Trump on the hostage release was getting zero traction from Hamas,” Makovsky added.

“If this is the case, Netanyahu may have viewed the negotiating track as an unhelpful constraint on taking action on the ground.”

With inputs from agencies