Hamas publicly called on Iran to "avoid targeting neighbouring countries" while affirming Tehran's right to retaliate against the United States and Israel1. The statement came from an organisation headquartered in Doha — a city that has absorbed Iranian ballistic missiles repeatedly since 28 February and was targeted again on Saturday with four missiles and several drones.
The political bureau's position in Qatar creates a dependency that now openly contradicts its dependence on Iranian patronage. Qatar hosts Hamas's senior leadership, funds its operations, and pledged $1 billion to Trump's Board of Peace initiative. When Iranian missiles land on Qatari soil, Hamas's two benefactors are at war with each other. The organisation's military wing needs Iranian weapons. Its political wing needs Qatari territory. On Saturday, territory won. Hamas has absorbed every escalation of this conflict without publicly criticising its patron. What changed was the accumulation of Gulf Arab fury: the UN Security Council's Resolution 2817 condemned Iran's Gulf attacks with a record 135 co-sponsors; the Arab League Secretary-General called the strikes "treacherous" — a term implying betrayal of the 2023 Saudi-China brokered rapprochement; Iranian drones hit a Bahraini desalination plant, the island's sole water lifeline; migrant workers were killed in Saudi Arabia by a drone aimed at nearby radar systems. The pressure on Hamas's Doha hosts became untenable.
The statement's futility is its most revealing element. President Pezeshkian ordered Gulf strikes halted on 7 March. Hours later, Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf reversed the commitment, declaring Gulf nations hosting US bases remained targets2. The IRGC continued firing. Hamas is now asking the Revolutionary Guards to exercise restraint that Iran's own constitutional chain of command could not impose — an appeal to an institution that has publicly demonstrated it takes orders from no civilian authority, foreign or domestic. The IRGC's 31 autonomous provincial commands have sustained coordinated operations across The Gulf even after the destruction of their aerospace and drone headquarters in Tehran. An organisation that disregards its own president is unlikely to heed a Palestinian faction whose survival depends on Iranian money.
