Archive September 9, 2025

The Israeli military says explosions seen and heard in the Qatari capital, Doha, are the result of an assassination attempt against Hamas leaders.

Tuesday’s attack is the first by Israel in Qatar, a key mediator in ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas and home to the region’s largest United States military base, Al Udeid Air Base.

Israel has been bombarding Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria as well as carrying out daily attacks in the occupied West Bank in Palestine.

A Hamas source told Al Jazeera that the attack in Doha targeted the Hamas negotiating team. The attack came as the negotiators were meeting to consider the latest ceasefire proposal put forth by the US.

The Israeli military released a statement saying it and the Shin Bet intelligence service “recently carried out a targeted attack on the top leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization”.

“The members of the leadership who were attacked led the terrorist organization’s activities for years, and are directly responsible for carrying out the October 7 massacre and waging the war against the State of Israel”, it added, referring to the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The statement said that before the attack, “steps were taken to minimize harm to uninvolved people, including the use of precision weapons and additional intelligence information.”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also released a statement, saying the action “against the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas was a wholly independent Israeli operation”.

“Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility,” said the statement.

Israel has assassinated many of Hamas’s top military and political leaders in the last two years, such as top political leader Yahya Sinwar; military commander Mohammed Deif, one of the founders of the Qassam Brigades in the 1990s; and political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran.

Qatar condemns ‘criminal attack’

In a statement, Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the country “condemns in the strongest terms” the attack, which he said was carried out on residential buildings housing several members of the Hamas political bureau.

“This criminal attack constitutes a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms and a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents of Qatar,” the statement said.

“While strongly condemning this attack, the State of Qatar affirms that it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and its continued tampering with regional security, as well as any action targeting its security and sovereignty. Investigations are underway at the highest level, and further details will be announced as soon as they become available.”

Qatar’s Interior Ministry said in a later statement that that situation in Doha was safe, and specialised teams were working at the scene of the strike.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned Israel’s strikes as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.”

He said Qatar has been playing a very positive role to try and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of captives held by Hamas.

“All parties must work towards achieving a permanent ceasefire, not destroying it,” he said.

All of the key Gulf states and several other Arab nations have also issued strong statements condemning the attack.

Residential area targeted

Speaking from Doha, where police have cordoned off the area surrounding the attack, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said the strike was a shocking development in Qatar, which was known as a safe and secure country.

The strike had occurred in a quiet, residential neighbourhood with many foreign embassies.

“Qatar is known around the world for the level of security that people here enjoy,” he said.

“The explosions were heard ringing out across the city… There are a lot of very nervous, very worried people across this country as we speak.”

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Suhaib Al-Assa said security officials have said their priority was to secure the scene and locate damage and casualties.

“The security procedures are very complex because we are talking about an extremely sensitive site – a site that is very close to residential buildings and people’s homes,” he said.

Sultan Barakat, a professor at Doha’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, said he was eating lunch when he heard the blasts.

He told Al Jazeera that the latest strikes would further entrench Israel’s reputation as an international pariah state that was acting outside international norms.

“It is acting more as … an aircraft carrier,” he said. “The way it is resolving its problems is very far from what you’d expect from a proper state.”

He said while the US has not commented on the strikes yet, it would have to account for the actions of its ally.

“The US sponsors Israel, they must own up to this responsibility and explain what is going on.”

The White House has not yet issued a statement on the attack. US President Donald Trump delivered an ultimatum over the weekend to Hamas on social media, saying that the Israelis had accepted what he called “his terms” for a ceasefire, and that it was time for Hamas to accept as well.

‘Emboldened’ by Gaza genocide

The strikes in Doha come less than two weeks after Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir pledged to target Hamas leaders wherever they were in the world following a situation assessment meeting with his top commanders.

“Most of Hamas’s leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well,” Zamir said on August 31.

Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim said from Doha that the unprecedented attack on the city, which has hosted negotiations for a potential ceasefire in Gaza, reflected how “emboldened” Israel has become “by being able to carry out a genocide and getting away with it”.

Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the strike in a third country was similar to Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran last year.

The Israeli claims that it took measures to mitigate civilian harm should be taken with a grain of salt, she said, given how many civilians in the Gaza Strip have been killed over the past two years.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said the attack was “not just shocking” but a “disgusting, mafia-type action”, as it targeted diplomatic efforts.

The idea of deploying a protective or peacekeeping force in Palestine is nothing new. After Israel was established through the horrendous massacres and mass ethnic cleansing of 1948, the United Nations set up its Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) to observe the implementation of the 1949 Israel-Arab Armistice Agreements. In 1974, it sent the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to support the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, and in 1978, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was deployed on Lebanese territory. None of these forces was able to stop Israeli aggression.

After the Israeli reinvasion of the occupied West Bank and the massacre in Jenin in 2002, former United States President Bill Clinton reawakened the idea of an international force in the occupied Palestinian territory.

With the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023, this proposal started getting diplomatic traction again. In May 2024, the Arab League called for a peacekeeping force for the occupied Palestinian territory. The likes of the Atlantic Council supported the idea, and so did various Western officials, including Germany’s genocidal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

In July this year, a high-level conference led by France and Saudi Arabia also suggested an “international stabilisation mission” in Gaza, premised on an invitation by the Palestinian Authority. The idea was refloated following the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) much-belated proclamation of famine in Gaza.

Undoubtedly, such an intervention, armed or unarmed, would not only be legal under international law but would also be a way to comply with the international legal principle of responsibility to protect. The key question, however, is: How would such a protection force work in real life?

Looking at the geopolitical reality, it is hard to imagine it could work without Israeli agreement. Israel enjoys full, unconditional support from the US and acts with impunity. It has already demonstrated that it would act aggressively against any attempt to break the siege on Gaza; it has gone as far as breaching European Union airspace to attack a Gaza-bound humanitarian vessel. Any protection force attempting to enter Palestine without Israeli agreement would be attacked before it could get even close.

Therefore, the only option is for Israel and the US to agree to it. That is possible, but it would take place under their conditions, which would most likely lead to the internationalisation and normalisation of the genocide.

The first step in that direction has already been taken with the deployment of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at the end of May. Since then, Israel and GHF mercenaries have killed at least 2,416 Palestinians seeking aid and injured more than 17,700.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, has called it “an abomination” and “a death trap costing more lives than it saves”. UN experts have denounced “the entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous nongovernmental entities”. The UN emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, has denounced the GHF’s operations as a dangerous and “deliberate attempt to weaponise aid”.

The recent revelations by The Washington Post that US President Donald Trump’s plan to transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is still on the table give an indication of how the protection force could become a reality.

The plan, called Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation (GREAT), would see a foreign force deployed as part of the 10-year US-sponsored trusteeship over the Gaza Strip. The contingent would be formed by private contractors hired by the GHF, while the Israeli army would be responsible for “overall security”.  This would effectively mean the continuation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the supervision of foreign mercenaries.

This is certainly not the type of protective force that pro-Palestinian proponents of the idea would like to see, but it is the only one realistically possible as of now.

We are all longing for the genocide to stop and for Palestinians to be protected from Israeli aggression until its regime of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation ends. A protective force should have been deployed a long time ago – when the Zionist movement first started its genocidal project in Palestine in 1947.

Today, promoting the idea of a protective force not only opens the way for the realisation of the Trump plan, but also distracts from the most strategic and impactful form of intervention: ending international complicity and imposing sanctions on Israel. This is what is possible and real. This is what states willing to protect Palestinians and defend our rights and international law must do and can do, without depending on any other actor.

Twenty years ago, we started the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the path towards sanctions. Now we are on the verge of seeing the sanctions become real and impactful.

Last year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution committing member states to partial sanctions on Israel. If we can implement it, this will effectively undercut Israel’s capacity to continue to feed its genocide machine.

Meanwhile, the BDS action is taking effect. We are starting to be able to interfere with the supply chain of the genocide. We have stopped some steel shipments and military supplies from reaching Israeli buyers.

In August, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a second decree banning coal exports to Israel. Shortly after, Turkiye announced a complete stop to all commercial ties and the closure of its seaports and airspace to Israeli vessels and aircraft; the country used to be Israel’s fifth-largest import partner.

Israeli businessmen are admitting to local media that “a reality of a quiet boycott of Israel in the field of imports has been taking shape from suppliers in Europe, and especially from neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt”.

Should South Africa, Brazil, and Nigeria stop supplying energy to fuel Israel, this would have a huge short-term impact. China could stop its companies from operating the port of Haifa. The Global South has the power alone to stop the global supply chain of genocide by blocking the continuous flow of raw materials and components.

Even in Europe, some ties of complicity are starting to get loose. In the Netherlands, five ministers, including the foreign minister and the deputy prime minister, resigned after the cabinet was not able to agree on sanctions against Israel, plunging the government into crisis. Slovenia and Spain have announced arms embargoes. Workers’ mobilisations in ports across the Mediterranean and beyond have made maritime transfers of military materiel to Israel ever more difficult.

Popular pressure is mounting on governments to meet their legal and moral obligations and impose sanctions on Israel. This is not the time to push for impossible or insidious projects that could give them an excuse not to act.

We all saw how genocidal Israel shredded the Oslo plans for a two-state solution to pieces. Those accords were never more than an effort to make Europe, in particular, feel better about its role in our dispossession.

Let us not fall into the same trap again by supporting initiatives that would only make the world feel better about Israel’s genocide. Concrete pressure and sanctions remain the most effective measures at hand that the US-Israel axis cannot manipulate as much.

Let us strengthen concrete global multilateral initiatives in support of Palestine and international law, such as The Hague Group. Let us pressure states to implement sanctions and cut off the supply chain for the genocide.

The pressure must be sustained until apartheid and settler colonialism are dismantled between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday amid surging protests that began as a movement against corruption and inequality but exploded into broader calls for change after 19 youths were shot dead by security forces during clashes on Monday.

Protests continued on Tuesday morning, with agitators torching several buildings seen as associated with Nepal’s elite, even as ministers resigned and pressure built on Oli to follow suit.

However, despite Oli’s resignation, Nepal remains on edge, with protesters seeking sweeping changes to the country’s political landscape. Kathmandu’s international airport cancelled all flights scheduled for Tuesday.

Here’s the latest on the churn in Nepal, and the triggers driving the anger that has fuelled these protests:

What happened during the protests on Monday?

Protests began at 9am (03:15 GMT) on Monday in Kathmandu’s Maitighar neighbourhood. Thousands of young protesters, including high school students in their uniforms, took to the streets.

Dubbed the “Gen Z protest”, it was organised by the nonprofit organisation Hami Nepal, meaning “We are Nepal”. According to the Kathmandu District Administration Office, the NGO had secured approval for it. The protest spread to other cities.

Within hours, some protesters broke barricades set up by the police and entered the parliament premises in New Baneshwor. This resulted in clashes with the police, who opened fire on the protesters. Authorities imposed a curfew in the area until the evening.

At least 17 people were killed in Kathmandu, while two were killed in the eastern city of Itahari after protests turned violent, according to the police.

More than 100 people, including 28 police officers, were being treated for their injuries, according to police officer Shekhar Khanal, the Reuters news agency reported.

In a statement released late on Monday night, Oli said he was “deeply saddened” by the protesters’ deaths and called for an investigation into the violence.

What’s the latest on the ground in Nepal?

Authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew, which now covers Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts. The curfew order bars public gatherings, sit-ins and protests.

Oli resigned from his position on Tuesday, his secretariat confirmed.

However, on Tuesday, young protesters continued to rally on the streets of Kathmandu. They gathered near the parliament building, but did not carry any posters, local media reported.

They burned tyres while demonstrating in Kathmandu’s Kalanki area.

They also set fire to the Nepali Congress (NC) party’s central office in Sanepa, a neighbourhood in Lalitpur, about 5km (3 miles) from Kathmandu. Since last year, the NC — one of Nepal’s largest political parties — has been a coalition partner of Oli’s governing Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).

Oli’s resignation came after some of his ministers stepped down in the aftermath of Monday’s deaths. On Monday, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned. Agriculture Minister Ramnath Adhikari quit his post on Tuesday.

Who are ‘nepo kids’ and why are they upsetting Nepali youth?

A key trigger for the protests, say activists and experts, has been a growing perception that the families of the ruling elite live lives of relative luxury in an otherwise poor nation, exposing deep inequalities.

On Nepali social media, the term “nepo kids” — a play on nepotism — was viral in the weeks leading up to Monday’s protests. The term is commonly used to refer to the children of top government officials and ministers.

Nepal’s government officials and politicians have long faced accusations of widespread corruption, opacity over how public money is spent, and whether parts of it are used to fund the lavish lifestyles that their families appear to enjoy, despite modest official salaries.

Several videos on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram show the relatives of government officials and ministers travelling in or posing next to expensive cars and wearing designer brands.

“The anger over ‘nepo kids’ in Nepal reflects deep public frustration,” said Yog Raj Lamichhane, an assistant professor at the School of Business in Nepal’s Pokhara University. What strikes ordinary Nepalis is how political leaders — the parents of the so-called nepo kids — who once lived modestly as party workers “now flaunt extravagant lifestyles as established figures,” Lamichhane told Al Jazeera.

That is why protesters are demanding the formation of a special investigation commission to “thoroughly investigate the sources of their [politicians’] property, highlighting broader concerns about corruption and economic disparity in the country”, he said.

Nepal has traditionally been a deeply feudal society, with a monarchy in place until less than two decades ago, pointed out Dipesh Karki, an assistant professor at Kathmandu University’s School of Management.

Throughout the country’s history, “those who came into power have wielded their control over the resources and the wealth of the nation, resulting in what we can dub as an elite capture”, Karki told Al Jazeera.

Earlier this week, a video on TikTok showed images of Sayuj Parajuli, the son of former Nepali Supreme Court Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli, posing next to cars and in fancy restaurants. “Openly flexing luxury cars and watches on social media. Aren’t we tired of them by now?” the caption read.

Another video showed similar images of Saugat Thapa, son of Bindu Kumar Thapa, the law and parliamentary affairs minister in Oli’s government.

Karki said urban wealth and businesses, as well as educational opportunities, are largely concentrated among elite families, particularly those with political connections.

“The children of politicians are living off the political dividend.”

How unequal is Nepal?

Nepal’s per capita annual income of approximately $1,400 is the lowest in South Asia. Its poverty rate has consistently hovered over 20 percent in recent years.

The country’s youth unemployment has been a big challenge, while the percentage of unemployed Nepali youth also not pursuing education stood at 32.6 percent in 2024, compared with 23.5 percent for neighbouring India, according to World Bank data.

As a result, about 7.5 percent of the country’s population was living abroad in 2021. By comparison, about 1 percent of Indians live outside their country. In 2022, about 3.2 percent of Pakistan’s population was abroad.

Nepal’s economy heavily relies on remittances from its citizens working abroad. “It’s really a harsh reality that most of the poor are outside Nepal, sending remittances to Nepal,” Karki said.

As of 2024, personal remittances received comprised 33.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) — among the highest in the world, after Tonga, for which the percentage was 50 percent; Tajikistan at 47.9 percent; and Lebanon at 33.3 percent.

For India, this percentage was 3.5 percent and for Pakistan, 9.4 percent, in the same year.

Karki said land ownership remains unequal despite land reform efforts. “The top 10 percent of households own over 40 percent of land, while a large share of the rural poor are landless or we can say near landless.”