World leaders have been expressing outrage over the Israeli strikes against Hamas within Qatar for being a flagrant breach of international law.

But at a time and in a conflict in which so many international laws — and norms — are being broken, this new breach should perhaps not come as a surprise.

Israel's leaders stand accused of war crimes over the conduct of its war in Gaza in response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas.

But since October 7, Israel had already hit targets in a number of third countries, notably Syria, Lebanon and Iran, as it sought to take out the leadership of Hezbollah. Loading...

There was a much more muted reaction to these actions than we have seen to the one in Qatar.

In the case of the earlier strikes, there was an element of shock and awe that Israel had

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