When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered this week’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, he took a major gamble in his campaign to pound the terror group into submission.

With signs growing that the mission failed, that gamble appears to have backfired.

Netanyahu had hoped to kill Hamas’ senior exiled leaders to get closer to his vision of “total victory” against the terror group that carried out the brutal massacre of 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023, and pressure it into surrendering after nearly two years of war in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, Hamas claims its leaders survived, and Netanyahu’s global standing — already badly damaged by the scenes of destruction and humanitarian disaster in Gaza, as Israel tries to destroy Hamas and get back 48 hostages held there — took another hit.

The airstrike on Tuesday has enraged Qatar, an influential US ally that has been a key mediator throughout the war, and drawn heavy criticism across the Arab world. It also has strained relations with the White House and thrown hopes of reaching a ceasefire into disarray, potentially endangering the 20 hostages still believed to be alive.

But while the strike marks a setback for Netanyahu, he shows no sign of backing down or halting the war. And with his hard-line coalition still firmly behind him, Netanyahu faces no immediate threat to his rule.

Five low-level Hamas members and a Qatari security guard were killed in the strike.

But Hamas has said the intended target, senior exiled leaders meeting to discuss a new US ceasefire proposal, all survived. The terror group, however, has not released any photos of the leaders, and Qatar has not commented on their conditions.

If the airstrike had killed the top leadership, the attack could have provided Netanyahu an opportunity to declare Hamas’ destruction, said Harel Chorev, an expert on Arab affairs at Tel Aviv University.

“It’s all very symbolic and it’s definitely part of the thing which allows Netanyahu at a certain point to say ‘We won, we killed them all,'” he said.

Israel’s fierce 23-month........

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