Israel’s attack on Qatar is a dramatic escalation of the impunity with which Benjamin Netanyahu acts and Western leaders must hold his government accountable, says Herald columnist Mark McGeoghegan

The fallout from Israel’s strike on a Doha hotel on Tuesday, which reportedly killed three low-level members of a Hamas negotiating team and a Qatari security officer, continues apace. As I write, the United Nations Security Council is meeting in a delayed session being attended by the Qatari Prime Minister and briefed on events in Doha. Condemnation of the attack, which involved ballistic missile strikes aimed at a residential area of Qatar’s capital, was swift and unanimous across the region.

This wasn’t the first ballistic missile strike on Qatari soil. Iran attacked a US base in the country after US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Nor is it the first foray onto foreign territory in Israel’s war on Hamas, which has seen them strike targets in both Iran and Lebanon. But it is a significant escalation of the impunity with which Israel acts, and will leave their regional partners in countries like Saudi Arabia questioning their close ties at an emergency Arab-Islamic summit being held in Qatar this weekend.

As the Qatari Permanent Representative to the UN put it, Israel’s attack was “a blatant violation of all international norms........

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