Netanyahu’s Government Reportedly Urged Qatar To Keep Money Flowing To Hamas-Run Gaza

Israeli officials reportedly urged Qatar for years to keep sending money into Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Letters top Israeli security officials sent to Qatari leaders show Israel pushed for and helped run a program which moved close to $2 billion into Gaza, TIME reported Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is running in Israel’s Oct. 27 national elections and was endorsed Sunday by President Donald Trump, has tried to distance himself from the payments, according to the outlet.

Then-Mossad Director Yossi Cohen thanked Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in a 2020 letter for the “humanitarian aid efforts that the State of Qatar has provided the last few years to the Gaza Strip,” according to the outlet.

“Undoubtedly, these humanitarian efforts have played a crucial role in improving the humanitarian situation within the Gaza Strip, and ensuring stability and safety in the region,” Cohen wrote.

That same year, R. L. Maoz, who served on Netanyahu’s National Security Council, urged Qatari officials to keep the payments going even as the Israeli government criticized them in public, according to the outlet. “We reiterate the importance of continuing to transfer the Qatari humanitarian financial assistance through the existing mechanism,” Maoz wrote.

Neither the Embassy of Israel in the United States nor the State of Qatar’s International Media Office immediately responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Then-Mossad Director David Barnea met with Qatari officials in September 2023, weeks before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, The New York Times reported in December 2023, citing several people familiar with the talks. Asked whether Israel wanted the payments to continue, Barnea responded affirmatively, according to the outlet.

While Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment from TIME, he told the outlet in 2024 the payments were intended to keep Gaza from collapsing. “The reason that successive governments agreed to that is that we wanted to make sure that Gaza has a functioning civilian administration to avoid humanitarian collapse,” he said.

A spokesperson for Qatar’s International Media Office, meanwhile, told TIME that all of the country’s aid went through Israel on its way into Gaza. “If any funding reached Hamas, as alleged by individuals and groups with political agendas against Qatar, the responsibility lies with Israel, which oversaw the delivery and created the mechanism,” the spokesperson reportedly said.

Qatar and several other Arab nations are working with Trump administration envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff on a plan to restore Gaza’s basic services and end its reliance on armed Islamist groups, TIME reported.

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