Updated September 10, 2025 at 12:36 PM PDT
The Israeli military carried out unprecedented airstrikes Tuesday on senior Hamas leaders in a suburb of Qatar's capital, Doha. The attack killed six people, including the son of top Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya and a Qatari security official; no Hamas senior members were killed, according to the group.
It marks the first time Israel struck inside the Gulf country, which is a key U.S. ally, home to the largest U.S. military base in the region and is playing a central role in mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.
The attack drew condemnation from across the region, the U.N. and even rare disapproval from Washington. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social he called Qatar's emir afterward to assure him that such an attack would not happen again. Trump also said he notified Qatar about the impending attack through U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff when he found out about the strikes, but it was too late to stop the attack.
"The call that came to Qatar was 10 minutes after the attack. There was no warning before the attack," Majed al-Ansari, an advisor to Qatar's Prime Minister and the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told NPR.
In a conversation with Morning Edition's Leila Fadel, Ansari described the strike as a "flagrant attack against our sovereignty" and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to sabotage peace efforts. The clearest sign of this, he said, was Israel's decision to "bomb the mediator."
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Leila Fadel: Does Qatar plan to respond to Israel's attack on your country?
Majed al-Ansari: We have taken all measures to respond to this flagrant attack against our sovereignty. We have established a legal team headed by the minister of state, [Mohammed bin Abdulaziz] Al-Khulaifi, to discuss all possible legal and diplomatic avenues where we can address this attack. We have already sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council, and there will be a session by the Security Council over that. We are talking to all of our partners in the region and beyond to take a very strong position against the actions of Prime Minister Netanyahu that has driven Israel into being a pariah state in the region. And we want to make it very clear that this will never happen again and we will not allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to endanger the lives not only of Qataris who live here in Qatar but the region as a whole.
He is a saboteur in chief responsible for sabotaging any chance for peace in the region and the biggest message yet is bombing the mediator in order to send a very clear message that even those who work for the cause of peace are now targets.
Fadel: The Hamas political office was set up in your country over a decade ago at the behest of the United States, and Qatar's role as a negotiator with the group was requested by successive U.S. administrations. After this attack, will Qatar continue to play the role of negotiator if it makes your country unsafe?
Ansari: It will take more than an international bully like Prime Minister Netanyahu to change the DNA of the Qatari people. We have always been facilitating and mediating for [a] peaceful outcome. This is part of our constitution. It is part of our national identity, and it will remain so.
Fadel: Will you continue to mediate on this ceasefire deal? Are prospects for peace going to continue through Qatar?
Ansari: Obviously, when one party asks us to deliver a proposal to the other side, and then when we start meeting with the other side for these proposals, they bomb our country — they bomb the mediator and the places where the talks were taking place — it sends a very clear message that there is nothing valid in the talks. We will not stop our efforts to end the genocide of the people of Gaza, end the crimes of Prime Minister Netanyahu over the peoples of the region in Lebanon and Syria and in Palestine, and now in Qatar. We are now processing the situation and talking to our partners internationally to assure them that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been always there to derail the talks, either by assassinating people on the other side or, as we have seen now, by attacking the mediator themselves with impunity.
Fadel: If they're a target of Israel, will Hamas officials remain in Qatar?
Ansari: This is a decision to be taken by the highest echelons of leadership here in Qatar. At the moment, what we are busy with is our security forces and the Ministry of Interior forces and the Civil Defense Forces and the internal security force (ISF), are all there in the location constantly since this attack happened, trying to identify the fallen Qatari security people who were there in the location. We are concerned right now with our own national security, with the safety of people here in Doha, and making sure that everything that can be taken as the precautions taken right now in that location and beyond. I think there will be a moment where the decisions will be taken on a lot of issues, but right now, our main focus is on our sovereignty, our national security and in making sure that this attack does not go unanswered.
Fadel: The U.S. seemed largely caught off guard by this attack. President Trump said he was very unhappy about it and called Qatar's Emir to assure him it would never happen again. The White House also said they warned your government through U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, that the attack was coming. You disputed that online, did the U.S. warn Qatar, or did it not?
Ansari: The call that came to Qatar was 10 minutes after the attack. There was no warning before the attack. And as we have heard from our interlocutors in the U.S. and the calls made yesterday, the warning by Israel to the U.S. did not come before the attack, and therefore, there was no way for the U.S. to warn us. So this was a terrorist attack. There was absolutely no warning. And the region, the neighborhood where this attack happened, is a residential neighborhood where the location was known by your reporters and other people around Doha very openly where the talks were taking place with the Hamas delegation. So it was not a secret location or a hidden location. We conveyed all of this to the U.S. side, and we have received very clear confirmation that the U.S. was not consulted about this attack, does not condone this attack and that the U.S. will make sure that it doesn't happen again through its partnership with Qatar.
Fadel: How will it assure? I mean, the President called the Emir to assure it would not happen again, but how will the U.S. assure that it won't happen again if it didn't want it to happen in the first place?
Ansari: I would ask that question of the Trump administration, but we have full trust that working with the administration in the past has made a lot of our security strategic positions stronger, and it's a partnership that we believe in with the U.S. The institutional relationship between Qatar and the U.S. has always been strong, and we rely on our partners in the U.S. to make sure that Netanyahu is kept at bay and is no longer able to throw the whole region into chaos. This is a warmonger that is basing his policy decisions around the region on narcissism and political ambitions that don't go beyond staying in power for no more than one month. And as an international community, with the help of the U.S., we want to work to make sure that he is never able to do that again.
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