The Israeli military says it has carried out an assassination attempt on top Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, where multiple explosions have been heard.

This appears to undercut Israel’s claims to be earnestly negotiating a ceasefire in the Gaza war with the people it has attempted to assassinate and could mark a further escalation of regional conflict.

“Striking the party you claim to be negotiating a ceasefire with — in the midst of those negotiations — is proof positive that Israel is not negotiating in good faith, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to prioritize his own political coalition over Palestinian lives, or for that matter even the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza,” said Josh Paul, who spent more than 11 years as the director of congressional and public affairs at the State Department bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations before resigning in 2023 over U.S. military assistance to Israel.

“But more than that, striking the sovereign territory of a third country during peacetime is an act of war that makes a mockery of international law, further destabilizes the region, and means the chances of a peaceful Israeli integration into the Middle East are all the more distant,” Paul said.

The Qatari foreign ministry said that Israel targeted a residential complex where senior Hamas politicians lived. Qatar agreed to host an office for Hamas at the request of the United States, to facilitate peace talks, Qatari officials have said in the past.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the attack “a wholly independent Israeli operation” aimed at killing “the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas.” The statement continued: “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.”

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Qatar had been considered neutral ground and a safe zone for negotiations because Doha has a relationship with the Israeli government. Senior Israeli officials have repeatedly traveled to the Qatari capital for talks with Qatari leaders about securing the release of hostages in Gaza since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Israel has since attacked Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and now Qatar.

“As we have seen consistently since October 7th, Israel has little hesitation when it comes to expanding its war beyond Gaza — this follows a series of Israeli attacks in Syria, the major strike on the Houthi government in Yemen, continuing strikes on Lebanon even after the ceasefire, and of course the unprecedented campaign on sites in Iran,” said Emily Tripp, the executive director of Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring organization.

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Qatar condemned the attack. An unidentified senior Hamas official told Al Jazeera that the attack occurred while a team was discussing President Donald Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials.

Israeli issued an evacuation order for Gaza City on Tuesday, showering Palestinians living in the ruins of their homes with leaflets that said its military was preparing to obliterate the area.

The U.S. Embassy in the Qatari capital issued a shelter-in-place alert for all U.S. citizens due to “missile impacts in Doha.”

Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari called the attack a “criminal assault” and a “blatant violation” of international law. “The State of Qatar strongly condemns this attack and affirms that it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and the continuous tampering with the security of the region and any action aimed at its security and sovereignty,” he said in a statement.

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