Israel’s strike on Doha had the effect of uniting Gulf states around Qatar, reshaping Middle Eastern alliances, and signaling a new era of Gulf-led sovereignty and collective security.

On September 9, Israel launched missile strikes on Doha, targeting senior Hamas leadership. The attack, which ultimately failed to kill any senior leaders of the terror group, could be interpreted as an attempt to derail Qatar’s mediation efforts to end the war in Gaza and blunt Doha’s widening regional influence. Instead, it backfired. Qatar retained its mediation portfolio, its legitimacy grew, and regional neighbors quickly moved into its corner. The Doha summit that followed convened Arab and Islamic leaders in short order, and senior figures from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan flew in almost immediately.

The parade of visits—among them Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE’s Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum within 48 hours—telegraphed a level of coordination that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago. The old line that Gulf leaders were too divided by rivalry to stand together in crisis was always overstated; by 2025, it was untenable. Images of MbS meeting Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian in Doha underscored a new mood in the region: less passivity, more resolve. The Gulf, together with partners, signaled a willingness to confront Israel more assertively and to draw red lines of its own.

The Doha summit marked a pivot. It suggested that many Middle Eastern states no longer see the United States as the singular security guarantor. Trust had already thinned after the strikes; ambiguous statements from the Trump administration deepened skepticism. When representatives from roughly 60 Arab and Islamic nations gathered, Washington’s absence was conspicuous. Rather than dispatching a heavyweight envoy to the summit, the administration sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Israel first—a choice read by many as a gamble or a misjudgment. In his opening remarks, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani set the tone, calling for “concrete steps to address the state of madness, power, arrogance, and bloodthirstiness” attributed to Israel.

Behind the rhetoric came measures. Leaders discussed reviewing diplomatic and economic ties with Israel and activating joint Gulf Cooperation Council defense mechanisms—hints of a NATO-style arrangement. Turkey and Egypt conducted joint maritime drills in the eastern Mediterranean for the first time in 13 years. Beyond the Middle East, Saudi Arabia signed a defense pact with Pakistan, the Muslim world’s only nuclear power. A senior Saudi official, quoted by CNN, described the pact as “a culmination of years of discussions” rather than a response to any single episode—Riyadh’s way of signaling steadiness even as it layers deterrence. Taken together, these moves suggest a region more willing to coordinate militarily—and a Gulf whose traditionally pacifist posture now carries tangible teeth.

The security realignments and Pakistan’s emerging role as a “nuclear guarantor” coincided with a spurt of international momentum for recognizing Palestinian statehood. In the wake of the Doha summit, Washington and Tel Aviv appeared to reassess their positions. Saudi and Qatari statecraft, operating in tandem, secured what looked like meaningful concessions on Gaza and the diplomatic horizon for Palestine.

Rather than striking back militarily, Gulf capitals reached for precise diplomacy. That approach culminated in a meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which Netanyahu, at Trump’s direction, formally apologized to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani for the Doha strike and accepted a 20-point U.S. peace framework for Gaza. The plan—developed in close coordination with Israel and an organization associated with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair—aimed to lock in a ceasefire architecture with phased obligations.

Israel ultimately agreed to a lightly revised, 21-point version presented on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, leaving room for subsequent negotiation. Hamas, for its part, accepted the contours and proposed an interim technocratic administration—an attempt to signal it could operate as a responsible actor within a future Palestinian state.

Trump endorsed Hamas’s response, noting that the Cairo talks might yield clarifications and adjustments. They did. Phase one of the deal moved ahead: initial Israeli withdrawals, the first tranche of hostage releases, and preparations for a multinational task force to monitor and enforce the truce. The force—drawn from the United States, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and potentially the UAE—would provide a presence on the ground. The possibility of Turkish, Qatari, Egyptian, and Emirati troops rotating in and around Gaza would amount to the most credible security guarantee for Palestinian civilians, and the most robust external constraint on Hamas and Israel alike, since the current conflict began. As Qatar’s prime minister stressed, several clauses still require clarification and negotiation, but the process has injected cautious optimism into regional diplomacy.

Israel’s rapid acceptance of the plan—and its apology to Doha—signaled something more than tactical flexibility. It reflected recognition that Gulf unity, alongside rising regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, and a Pakistani backstop, could produce sustained diplomatic pressure. The calculus, for Jerusalem, had shifted: avoid further alienating Gulf capitals or risk an even tighter alignment against Israeli preferences.

The United States, meanwhile, sought to repair its standing. As reported by Al Jazeera, Trump issued an executive order affirming Qatar’s security and declaring that attacks on Qatar would be treated as threats to U.S. security. Washington’s leadership role in the new task force helped restore some measure of confidence among Gulf states that American commitments still carry weight. Yet analysts caution that this is a test, not a triumph: whether Israel implements subsequent phases of the plan—and whether Washington is willing to lean in when it does not—will determine if the U.S. can balance its assurances to Israel with the expectations of Arab partners. Even as they welcome the task force, Gulf governments are likely to continue building their own security mechanisms in parallel, reflecting their growing strategic autonomy.

This is a departure with deep roots. For years, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar styled themselves as pacifying stabilizers in the region, determined to prevent crises in the Levant from spilling over into the Gulf. But recurrent Israeli escalations—often shielded by American indulgence—have forced a rethink. In a region crowded with fragile equilibria, deterrence and coordination are not luxuries; they are the price of continued growth and the surest path to avoiding a wider war.

A more militarily organized Gulf would reshape the global balance at the margins of other conflicts—from Ukraine and Sudan to Yemen, the Iran-Israel shadow war, and Indo-Pak tensions. A GCC pact that functions even a little like NATO would fundamentally alter the region’s strategic map, embedding Gulf interests into a collective defense logic that extends beyond oil and finance into hard security.

The Doha attack, then, will not sit in the ledger as an isolated episode. The summit that followed marked a moment when the Gulf asserted a more coherent sovereignty, pairing diplomatic restraint with unmistakable resolve. With the first phase of the ceasefire holding and the multinational mission preparing to deploy, the emerging doctrine looks less like a rupture with Washington and more like a recalibration: partnership on terms of mutual responsibility, backed by the capacity to act without American permission. If 2025 is remembered as an inflection point, it will be because Gulf states showed that pacifism and power are not opposites—that a united Gulf can deter aggression, enforce red lines, and still keep diplomacy at the center of regional order.