Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on Tuesday was long overdue and should have been executed “almost two years ago,” the son of a Hamas founder told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview following the dramatic operation.
Israel carried out the attack targeting Hamas leadership in Qatar on Tuesday, with the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announcing a “precise strike” in what marks the first Israeli military action on Qatari soil.
Hamas later claimed that its top leadership and the key targets in this operation, Khalil al-Hayya, Khaled Mashaal, and Zaher Jabarin, survived the attack, though six others were killed, including a Qatari security officer.
“This should have been done almost two years ago,” Mosab Hassan Yousef, known as the “Green Prince,” told the Post. “Qatar funded Hamas for many years, and Hamas took sanctuary in Qatar. They thought that they could not be reached, and they thought they were immune.”
Yousef, whose father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a founding member of Hamas, said Israel’s action sends an unequivocal message that “there is no immunity to those who kill innocent civilians, who butcher civilians and take hostages, then blackmail a nation in an attempt to bring the Jewish people and Israel as a nation on [to] its knees.”
Not in Hamas’s interest to harm hostages
When asked by the Post what the strikes could mean for the future of the hostages still in Hamas’s hands in Gaza, Yousef argued that the strike could actually improve prospects for a hostage deal by eliminating what he described as obstructionist brokers in Qatar who were “getting in the way of a deal.”
“I don’t think it’s in their interest to harm the hostages,” Yousef said, referring to Hamas military commanders in Gaza. “I think Israel did well by cutting this chain of brokers over the hostage situation.”
The strike targeted Hamas leaders who were reportedly meeting in Doha to discuss a US ceasefire proposal,
including top negotiator Hayya and veteran leader Mashaal. However, conflicting reports emerged about casualties, with some Arab media claiming senior officials were killed while Hamas sources insisted the leadership survived.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the strikes, stating, “The days when terror leaders enjoyed diplomatic immunity are over.”
Yousef believes Israel now has a better chance of negotiating directly with Izz al-Din al-Haddad, whom he identified as Hamas’s military wing leader in Gaza. “Haddad is directly responsible for the hostages,” he told the Post. “So why go through Qatar? Why not go through him directly?”
“Now Haddad knows that if he’s not going to seal a deal with Israel, he is going to be dead as well,” Yousef added. “So I think that the chances, in my opinion, are better.”
The Green Prince also offered a scathing assessment of Qatar’s role, suggesting the Gulf state may have secretly welcomed the end of its Hamas hosting arrangement despite public condemnations.
“Qatar is a small country, but they are very powerful. They are very influential,” he said. “But they are the ones who were funding Hamas and hosting Hamas. So basically, they take a huge part of the responsibility for what happened on October 7.”
The former Hamas insider speculated that Qatar found itself trapped by its Hamas guests. “Qatar could not expel them. They could not arrest them. And they tried to apply so much pressure, but it still didn’t work. So I think at the end, Hamas leaders became a liability for Qatar.”
He stated that Qatar was possibly informed of the assassination attempt beforehand, noting that “I wouldn’t be surprised if Qatar just wanted this Hamas chapter on the Qatari soil to end this way.”
Assessing the broader impact on Hamas, Yousef described Tuesday’s strike as “the biggest blow so far” to an organization already “devastated” since the war began. “You can say that Hamas abroad is pretty much annihilated,” he declared.
However, warning that the fundamental problem extends beyond Hamas, Yousef stated there is a broader problem to deal with – what he termed “Palestinian rejectionists who don’t want Israel to exist.”
“After two years of this war, I don’t see that the problem is between Israel and Hamas. I think the problem is between Palestinians and Israel,” Yousef said. “We have an entire generation who are living in victimhood, self-inflicted trauma that is materializing as resistance.”
In his most controversial remarks, Yousef called for the complete dismantling of Palestinian identity as a political movement. “Palestine and Palestinianism as an identity, as a violent political movement, must be dismantled completely,” he insisted. “The more you tolerate it, the more it becomes aggressive.”
Looking ahead, Yousef dismissed international promises of Palestinian statehood recognition as “ink on paper” that cannot “manifest in the real world.”
“In the real world, after October 7, this is a new reality. The Palestinians went too far,” he said. “On October 7, Israel declared war on Hamas... But on October 8, Palestinians declared war against Israel.”
The strike escalates Israel’s standoff with Arab nations over the war in Gaza, with Qatar condemning it as a “flagrant violation of international law.” However, Yousef argued such criticism is hypocritical given Qatar’s role in harboring Hamas leadership.
The operation marked a dramatic escalation in Israel’s campaign against Hamas, not seen since the assassination of former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last year, as the Jewish state, sick of waiting for a ceasefire deal to be reached, targeted the organization’s political leadership in their perceived safe haven.