Israel’s attack on Qatar’s capital Doha, targeting Hamas negotiators it has itself dealt with in efforts to end the war in Gaza, represents a dramatic new low even for a country that has long exposed itself to allegations of being a trigger-happy outlaw sowing carnage in its neighbourhood. In just the first nine months of 2025, Israel has bombed Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and, now, Qatar while pursuing what many experts now believe is a genocidal war in Gaza and planning the illegal annexation of the West Bank. Yet Tuesday’s missile strike on a compound in Doha — next to embassies, supermarkets and schools — ranks as a stunning demonstration of Israel’s confidence in its ability to wreak havoc and embarrass even its most important allies with impunity. Qatar is not a country that has ever attacked Israel. It is a close ally of the United States of America and hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East. Doha has long been the site for negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire that Israeli officials have repeatedly visited. And it is Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal that Hamas’s negotiators — not fighters — had gathered to discuss when they were struck by Israel’s bomb.

This is a direct attack on Mr Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end the war on Gaza. It is a violation of the sovereignty of a country that has never been a military threat to Israel. And it is the latest reminder that Israel does not believe that it needs to even pretend to adhere to the United Nations Charter or any international law. That the attack drew prompt criticism from many of Israel’s closest friends, including India, the United Kingdom and France, underscores how even their patience is running thin with a country behaving like a rogue State. But it is precisely because major nations have allowed Israel to stomp on the sovereignty of country after country without consequence that the world now faces an unsettling question: if Qatar, despite a US security umbrella, can be attacked unprovoked, is anyone safe from Israel’s excesses? Mr Trump has told Qatar’s emir that there will be no repeat, but Israel has announced that it will strike again, since its Hamas targets survived, cocking a snook at the US president and others who have urged restraint. Words of condemnation are not enough anymore. If Israel wants to behave like a pariah to international law, the world must treat it as one.