(Reuters) - Israel launched an attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar on Tuesday, expanding its campaign against the Palestinian militant group.
Israeli officials told Reuters the strike was aimed at top Hamas leaders including Khalil al-Hayya, its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator. Two Hamas sources told Reuters that Hamas officials in the ceasefire negotiating team survived the attack.
CAIRO (Reuters) -Hamas political bureau member, Suhail al-Hindi said the group's leadership survived Israel's attack on Doha in a televised interview with Al Jazeera TV.
The son of Hamas's exiled Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya was killed in the attack.
(Reporting by Jaidaa Taha, Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Yomna Ehab)
By Andrew Mills, Jana Choukeir and Ahmed Elimam
DOHA/DUBAI (Reuters) -Israel launched an airstrike against Hamas leaders in Qatar on Tuesday, expanding military actions that have ranged across the Middle East to include the Gulf Arab state where the Palestinian Islamist group has long had its political base.
Qatar, which has acted as a mediator alongside Egypt in talks on a ceasefire in the almost two-year-old war in Gaza, condemned the attack as "cowardly" and called it a flagrant violation of international law.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Leo, who typically refrains from speaking off the cuff, expressed unusually forceful concern on Tuesday about the consequences of Israel's strike in Qatar.
"There's some really serious news right now: Israel's attack on some Hamas leaders in Qatar," the pontiff told journalists outside his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
"The entire situation is very serious," Leo said. "We do not know how things will go. It is really serious."
(Reuters) -Israel launched an attack on the leadership of Hamas in Qatar on Tuesday, where the Palestinian Islamist group has long had its political base.
Below are comments from leaders and states in response:
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
"Today's 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."
QATAR
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official targeted by Israel in Qatar on Tuesday, has become an increasingly central figure in the leadership of the Palestinian militant group since both Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar were killed last year.
Israeli officials told Reuters the attack was aimed at top Hamas leaders including Hayya, its exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator. Two Hamas sources told Reuters the group's ceasefire negotiation delegation in Doha survived the attack.
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday 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 all hostages held by Hamas.
“All parties must work towards achieving a permanent ceasefire, not destroying it," Guterres told reporters.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York)
Deadly Israeli air strikes targeted senior Hamas leaders on Tuesday in US ally Qatar, the venue of repeated rounds of Gaza peace talks, drawing a rare rebuke from President Donald Trump.
The Palestinian militant group said six people were killed in the strikes, including a son of its top negotiator, but that its senior leaders had survived. Qatar said one of its security officers also died.
The White House said Trump did not agree with Israel's decision to take military action on the US ally's soil and had warned Qatar in advance of the incoming strikes.
By Aidan Lewis
CAIRO (Reuters) -Egyptian-British blogger and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah rose to prominence as an impassioned voice in the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Egypt's veteran autocrat and has since become a symbol of the struggle for human rights in his country.
On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered authorities to study a possible pardon for Abd el-Fattah, along with seven others, the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights said in a statement.
By Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia on Tuesday sent a big delegation to Syria, headed by its top energy official, in its most visible effort yet to build relations with the government that toppled former President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Moscow, late last year.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in televised comments that Russia and Qatar are discussing humanitarian aid to Syria and the restoration of its energy sector. He did not spell out what form of support they might provide.
