Donald Trump has distanced the US from Israel’s “unfortunate” strike in Qatar, which drew international condemnation and killed five members of Hamas.

The Israeli Defence Forces said it carried out Tuesday’s strike in Doha “targeting the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility” for the attack – which the US president echoed on Truth Social.

As it happened: NATO member says it will stand by Qatar

Mr Trump said the US military notified his administration about the Israeli attack on the Qatari capital, and added: “It was not a decision made by me.

“Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”

Mr Trump then said however that eliminating Hamas “is a worthy goal,” and that he believes “this unfortunate incident could serve as an opportunity for PEACE”.

Speaking to reporters a little later, he said he was “not thrilled” about the strike and would make a “full statement” on Wednesday.

Qatar’s UN ambassador says strike ‘cowardly’

Mr Netanyahu said the operation was a “surgical, precision strike,” and claimed it was “completely justified” after six people were killed in Jerusalem – which Hamas took responsibility for.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s interior ministry said that a member of its security forces were killed in Israel’s strike, and its UN ambassador called the attack a “criminal assault” and “cowardly” act.

Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani told the United Nations Security Council that Qatar “not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and the ongoing disruption of regional security,” adding the strike “constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms”.

In a phone call with Mr Trump, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani also said Qatar will take all necessary measures to protect its security and preserve its sovereignty.

Read more on this story:
Hard to see how Doha airstrike helps Israeli hostages
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Starmer condemns strike ahead of Herzog visit

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also condemned Israel’s strike, saying it violates Qatar’s sovereignty and risks further escalation in the region.

His comments came ahead of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Britain, where he will meet with the prime minister this afternoon.

Sir Keir said in a statement he intends to raise the issue of the “intolerable situation” in Gaza with Mr Herzog, adding: “We’ve been clear Israel must take action to end [the] horrific scenes.”

In a phone call with the Emir of Qatar, Sir Keir also “gave his condolences for the death of a Qatari security officer killed in the attack”, according to a Downing Street readout.

Protests against Mr Herzog’s visit are widely expected throughout his visit. Demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street yesterday to protest his arrival, while Green Party leader Zack Polanski told Sky News that the official should be arrested.

Mr Polanski, who is Jewish, said: “Welcoming a potential war criminal to the UK is another demonstration of how this Labour government is implicated in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“It also serves as a brutal insult to those mourning the thousands of innocent lives lost and to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing ongoing violence and hunger.”

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Israel has strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide, but is being challenged on the issue in a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The world’s leading association of genocide scholars, as well as several Israeli human rights organisations, have already accused the country of genocide.

Poland has said it is shooting down Russian drones after they “repeatedly violated” its airspace during attacks on Ukraine.

In a statement on X, the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said “weapons have been used, and operations are underway to locate the downed targets” after its airspace was “repeatedly violated”.

The military command added it had scrambled its own and NATO allied air defences, marking the first time in the war that Poland had engaged Russian assets in its airspace.

It then said Warsaw’s military operation was ongoing and urged people to stay at home, naming the regions of Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, and Lublin as most at risk.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk repeated on social media that “an operation is underway related to the repeated violation of Polish airspace”.

Russia’s strikes appear to have been targeting Lviv, in Ukraine’s eastern region, with its mayor Andriy Sadovy posting on Telegram that explosions were heard in the city.

Poland has been on high alert for airspace incursions since 2022, when a stray Ukrainian missile struck a southern village and killed two people.

Ukraine’s air force had earlier said on Telegram that Russian drones had entered NATO-member Poland’s airspace, threatening the city of Zamosc, but it removed that statement.

Meanwhile, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration, Poland also closed four airports – including Warsaw’s Chopin terminal – after Russia launched its drone strikes.

It added that the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport in Poland’s southeast, a hub for passenger and arms transfers to Ukraine, was among the airports that had been temporarily closed.

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Trump says next call with Putin soon

According to CNN, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been briefed on the reports.

It comes as Donald Trump said he plans on speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin soon – weeks after their first face-to-face in years.

Speaking in Washington DC, the US president said he thinks a call will happen “this week or early next week”.

It also comes after NATO secretary Mark Rutte told Sky’s Yalda Hakim that he believes Mr Trump is “crucial” in bringing Mr Putin to the negotiating table.

The Israeli airstrike on the Qatari capital Doha is a step change in the way they tackle their enemies, but only the latest in a series of them.

In the past, Israel used stealthier means to dispatch its foes. Plausible deniability was preferable.

October 7 changed everything, the Israelis say.

So when they came for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2024 in the Iranian capital of Tehran, they didn’t bother with anything as subtle as poison or strangulation – they blew him up with an airstrike instead.

Now it’s launched another one, this time not on a city in a country that’s hostile to Israel, but one it has relations with, to the horror of the region and massive diplomatic fallout.

You might assume the targets were high value, a clear and present threat to Israel, to justify all that. Not exactly.

There are plenty of reasons for Israelis to hate the old men of Hamas, whom they appear to have targeted. In the past, some of them were instrumental in organising terrorist attacks that killed many innocent women and children.

Follow the latest: Hamas leadership ‘survives Israeli strikes on Doha’

They will have cheered on the 7 October atrocities, but so far as we know, they were not its primary masterminds.

Hamas’ Doha office

In 2011, the US government persuaded the Qataris to let Hamas open a political office in Doha, and the Israelis approved of the idea.

Everyone wanted an address to negotiate with and funnel millions of dollars through to Gaza.

In the words of one Israeli official: “We believe that better conditions in Gaza would lessen the incentive of Hamas and the population to go again to a war. So in a way, it is helping the deterrence.”

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Critics of Benjamin Netanyahu said he was deliberately strengthening one wing of Palestinian politics as part of a cynical policy of divide and rule.

For whatever reason, Israel acquiesced fully in the Hamas political office being set up in Doha. It was staffed with some of the veterans of its cause who seem to have been on the target list in this strike.

When I interviewed Khaled Meshaal in Doha in October 2023, he was determined and dogmatic, but seemed at one stage removed.

He was no longer the ideological godfather of the movement, he clearly had been when I first met him in Damascus in 2017.

The hard men of Gaza – Yahya Sinwar, Abu Obeida, Muhammad Deif – were in control now, much more than those languishing in exile.

Hard to see how strikes help hostages in Gaza

Mr Netanyahu will have had his reasons for today’s strikes.

He has almost certainly been waiting for another chance to kill Meshaal after his first attempt failed so spectacularly.

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In 1997, he sent Mossad agents to pour a lethal poison into his ear in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

They botched the job, and King Hussein told then-US president Bill Clinton to order the Israeli leader to hand over an antidote that saved him.

Initial reports suggest the wily Meshaal escaped the latest attempt on his life, too.

But the men killed and targeted today were, for all their faults, the people Israel was indirectly talking to try to negotiate the return of their hostages.

It is hard to see how this helps their plight now.