Israel’s 9 September airstrike in Doha was not just another episode in its long war with Hamas. It was a thunderclap. Ten Israeli warplanes flew nearly 1,800 kilometres through Arab skies, unleashed a barrage of missiles at a Hamas delegation meeting site in the Qatar's capital, and then turned back home. Six people died, including a Qatari security officer. Hamas’s top brass survived, but the bigger story wasn’t who was hit. It was who looked the other way.
Let’s state the obvious: Israeli jets don’t cruise uninvited through the airspace of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia without someone nodding them along.
This wasn’t a case of radar operators sipping tea and missing a blip on their screens. It was a pre-cleared, pre-negotiated, multinational mission. Reports confirm that British and American refuelling planes were in place east of Qatar, topping off the strike package under United States Central Command (CENTCOM) authority. You don’t pull off a precision raid like this without regional complicity.
And yet, after the dust settled, the Arab world’s response was astonishingly muted. There were condemnations, yes - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, and the usual chorus spoke of sovereignty and international law. The Arab League and GCC issued their boilerplate statements. But the outrage was perfunctory. No emergency summit. No ambassadors withdrawn. No threats of oil embargoes or diplomatic freezes. Just words, thin as desert air.
Why? Because many Arab leaders are done with Hamas.