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Is­rael struck the head­quar­ters of Hamas’ po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship in Qatar on Tues­day as the group’s top fig­ures gath­ered to con­sid­er a U.S. pro­pos­al for a cease­fire in the Gaza Strip. The strike on the ter­ri­to­ry of a U.S. al­ly marked a stun­ning es­ca­la­tion and risked up­end­ing talks aimed at wind­ing down the war and free­ing hostages.

The at­tack an­gered Qatar, an en­er­gy-rich Gulf na­tion host­ing thou­sands of Amer­i­can troops that has served as a key me­di­a­tor be­tween Is­rael and Hamas through­out the 23-month-old war and even be­fore. It con­demned what it re­ferred to as a “fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of all in­ter­na­tion­al laws and norms” as smoke rose over its cap­i­tal, Do­ha. Oth­er key U.S. al­lies in the Gulf, Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, promised their sup­port to Qatar.

Hamas said in a state­ment its top lead­ers sur­vived the strike but that five low­er-lev­el mem­bers were killed, in­clud­ing the son of Khalil al-Hayya — Hamas’ leader for Gaza and its top ne­go­tia­tor — three body­guards, and the head of al-Hayya’s of­fice. Hamas, which has some­times on­ly con­firmed the as­sas­si­na­tion of its lead­ers months lat­er, of­fered no im­me­di­ate proof that al-Hayya and oth­er se­nior fig­ures had sur­vived.