Trends indicate many Hamas officials survived IDF’s Qatar strike, results still in the air

Statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday notably left out any mention of whether the Hamas leaders were killed.

As of Wednesday night, Israeli officials have yet to publicly provide clear indications of the state of the Hamas leaders in Qatar whom they tried to assassinate on Tuesday.

That said, it is possible that many of the targets survived.

If, in the early hours after the attack, The Jerusalem Post received optimistic, off-the-record signs that several Hamas leaders were indeed killed, by 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, those signs from the Israeli sources had switched to pessimism.

This is significant because, though Hamas – within a few hours of the attack – said that its leadership had survived, the terrorist group has been known to issue knee-jerk denials when its leaders, such as Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif, were dead, admitting to the facts only months later.

By Wednesday night, the prevalent narrative in Arab media reports suggested that the top Hamas leaders had left their cell phones in one room while moving to another to pray, and thus survived the attack.

Then again, a whole day has gone by, and yet none of the Hamas leaders have appeared in any public format to prove that they are alive and well. Case in point, only one official, Husam Badran, has issued a public statement by press time.

Statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday notably left out any mention of whether the Hamas leaders were killed – a blatant omission which also implies that the IDF may not have successfully eliminated the officials.

One possibility is that many of the Hamas officials were wounded, and some may subsequently die from their injuries.

In such a case, Hamas might withhold any announcements until it has a better idea of which officials may still be healthy enough to retain their roles, as opposed to those who may have survived but may have been put out of commission.

It is also possible that because the air force used precise munitions, not a larger bomb, the Hamas leaders survived.

The Israel Air Force used a smaller, precise munition to avoid hurting local Qataris. Such a strategy has, in the past, led to top Hamas officials’ survival, even when a missile successfully struck the exact room they were in.

Most of the speculation surrounds Khalil al-Hayya, who was viewed as the group’s leader outside of Gaza after serving as the mouthpiece and deputy of Hamas’s former chief, Sinwar, who himself was killed by Israel in October 2024.

Hayya’s son, however, as well as other top Hamas staffers, were reportedly killed in the Doha attack.

There were numerous conflicting reports regarding the fates of other officials, such as Zaher Jabarin, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Mohammed Ismail Darwish.

A majority of reports indicated that former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal either was not present or had otherwise survived the attack.

Shin Bet backs the attack, IDF chief opposed the idea

After two years of Qatar hosting negotiations between Israel and Hamas over hostage exchanges and ceasefires, the Israeli government decided that killing the remaining Hamas leaders was more important than leaving that diplomatic channel open.

A statement said that the leaders who were targeted were responsible for the October 7 massacre, as well as managing the terrorist group’s operations for years before that.

The US has been mostly critical of Israel’s attack, as have been European countries and even Arab allies of Israel, who usually dislike Doha.

In Israel, it leaked on Wednesday that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir had opposed the strike, but ordered it once the cabinet made its decision.

Acting Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief “S” favored the strike.

This is consistent with the Shin Bet’s closer relations with Egypt and its consistent preference for Cairo as the primary hostage and ceasefire negotiations mediator.

While some reports said that Mossad director David Barnea also opposed the attack, the Post understands that the spy chief walked a more nuanced line.

Barnea has been consistently in favor of taking a partial hostage deal, which would seem to preclude killing the Hamas negotiators.

Additionally, Barnea and the Mossad have viewed Qatar as having a positive impact on the talks, resulting in two partial hostage deals: one in November 2023 and the other in January of this year.

But the Post also understands that Barnea was not categorically opposed to the attack; he himself was charged with avenging the deaths of Israelis on October 7 by targeting any and all Hamas leaders indiscriminately.

It is very possible that Barnea may have pressed for a delay in the attack to see if a deal could still be cut with Hamas first, while not flatly opposing it.