The Israeli jets over the Red Sea launched a volley of missiles that arced high into the atmosphere and came down on a residential neighborhood in Doha, Qatar, where Hamas representatives were discussing the possibility of a plan to end the war in Gaza.
The Sept. 9 strike was a stunning provocation by Israel: negotiation by bombing the negotiators. Even more than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s other aggressive acts in the Middle East over the past year, this one so rankled government officials both in the region and in Washington that it threatened to blow up the prospects for a cease-fire.
But 20 days later, Mr. Netanyahu and President Trump stood together at the White House, declaring support for a plan that could end the nearly two-year-old war. Mr. Trump, with typical hyperbole, labeled it “a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.” Mr. Netanyahu, more cautious, said the proposal “achieves our war aims.”
The brazen Israeli attack failed to kill its targets. But it motivated an angry Mr. Trump and his advisers to pressure Mr. Netanyahu into supporting a framework for ending the war, after months in which the president appeared to have given the Israeli leader a free pass to continue assaulting Hamas even as the death toll and suffering among Palestinian civilians rose to levels that left Israel increasingly isolated.
Whether the framework will be accepted by Hamas remains unclear. Mr. Trump on Friday gave Hamas a deadline of 6 p.m. on Sunday to agree to the plan, after which he has said that Israel would have his “full backing” to eliminate it as a threat.
“If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media.
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The post How Trump Used Fury Over Israel’s Qatar Attack to Push Netanyahu on Gaza appeared first on New York Times.
