Qatar’s relationship with Hamas came under significant strain during the United States-Israel war against Iran.
Hamas had long been forced to manage the conflicting goals of Iran and Qatar, but the war with Iran made that dilemma more pressing. In effect, the organization was forced to choose between its two longtime patrons—Doha and Tehran—which had funded and supported it for decades, each cultivating ties with the elements closest to it within Hamas’s senior leadership.
Once Qatar itself was hit as part of Iran’s broader attack on Gulf states, however, Doha pressured Hamas to clarify its position and choose a side.
Hamas’s response was hesitant. It delayed putting out an official statement and when it did, messages of support for the “axis of resistance” appeared alongside a general, noncommittal paragraph opposing strikes on “neighboring countries.”
While that wording gave some Hamas supporters in the Gulf, particularly in Qatar, a degree of cover, it angered Gulf actors who saw it as an insufficient expression of solidarity with Qatar after it had been hit and led to the organization being perceived by Qatar as leaning closer to the Iranian side.
Reports in both social media and traditional media claimed that measures were being taken against figures identified with Hamas. These included pressure on activists, restrictions on influencers promoting the movement’s messages, and repeated leaks about a severe crisis in relations and the possibility that Qatar would act to remove Hamas’s leadership from its territory.
A source involved in the Cairo negotiations on Gaza told Israel’s Army Radio that, for a time, Qatar refused to allow Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, to return to Doha after the talks in Cairo ended in mid-April.
Tensions between al-Hayya and Qatar had in fact been reported even before the war, following his call for demonstrations across the Arab world to protest the situation in Gaza. Similar reports also described Qatari frustration with the approach taken by the head of the Hamas military wing in Gaza, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who was assassinated by Israel on May 15.
These reports, however, should be treated with caution. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on Israel, Doha has repeatedly used leaks about a possible move to distance itself from Hamas as a diplomatic instrument in its dealings with Washington, chiefly to project toughness and satisfy American expectations.
In the crisis with Iran, the same messaging served an additional purpose—a stern warning to actors that failed to show sufficient solidarity with Qatar’s predicament.
Continued cooperation
In practice, however, there were also signs that deep cooperation between Qatar and Hamas continued. When members of a Qatari-Turkish helicopter crew were killed in an accident in March, a delegation headed by Muhammad Nazzal and Abd al-Jaber Said and displaying Hamas symbols paid a condolence visit to the mourning tents in Doha.
The clearest indication of continued cooperation was the activity of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, which kept operating in the Gaza Strip during the war. Its work included drilling wells, water-pump programs, rubble removal, road paving and infrastructure rehabilitation.
These projects required cooperation with civilian mechanisms in the Strip, including the Gaza Municipality and the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility—bodies that, in some cases, are effectively controlled by Hamas personnel. This made clear that reports of a “break” between Qatar and Hamas were far from definitive.
Qatari humanitarian assistance to Gazans, delivered even at the height of the tensions between Hamas and Doha, should be viewed in the same context. In late March, the Qatar Fund for Development distributed shopping vouchers to about 10,000 Gazan families in Egypt. In April, staff from Hamad Hospital in Gaza received training from the Norwegian NORWAC foundation with funding from the Qatar Fund for Development.
The use of humanitarian and cultural cover to support elements identified with Hamas also appeared in other forms. In May, Hind bint Hamad al Thani, the sister of Qatar’s emir, who also serves as vice chairperson of the Qatar Foundation, praised volunteers working with Palestinian children from Gaza.
This was part of Qatar’s double message: Diplomatically, it continued to affirm recognition of the 1967 borders, while in various educational and cultural settings, it promoted a message of Palestinian control over the entire Land of Israel. Doha’s International Book Fair in mid-May offered another example of how Hamas-aligned messaging surfaced in cultural settings. Among the titles on display was a book praising tarwida, the Palestinian prison-song tradition used by terrorists in Israeli prisons to pass coded messages.
By early May, there were signs that relations were warming again. Appearing on the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera network, Palestinian commentator Mustafa Barghouti defended Hamas’s right to retain its weapons. Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk, interviewed in the London-based Qatari daily Al-Araby Al-Jadeed (The New Arab), took a relatively cautious line toward the mediation efforts of Qatar and the other mediators, while openly criticizing the U.S. The very fact that a senior Hamas figure was given a platform in a Qatari-aligned media pointed to a renewed willingness to give Hamas officials public visibility.
Al-Hayya’s son
The “crisis” took another turn after al-Hayya’s son was killed in an IDF operation in the Gaza Strip. Throughout this period, reports repeatedly pointed to a split within Hamas between the external leadership and the leadership inside Gaza. Khaled Mashaal, one of Hamas’s external leaders, was often portrayed as having deeper ties with the Qataris, ties dating back to the late 1990s and even earlier, while the camp associated with al-Hayya was seen as closer to the Iranian axis. But the death of al-Hayya’s son made him a more symbolic and popular figure in the Arab world, making it harder for Qatar to intensify pressure on him without appearing to target someone identified with Gaza’s suffering.
Al Jazeera also continued to give the al-Hayya family a platform. Khalil al-Hayya’s wife, Amal, was interviewed on the network, and presenters and media figures associated with the channel expressed support for her as a symbol of the women of Gaza and the Palestinian struggle. The interview with Amira Haddad, the daughter of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, about her father’s death should be read in the same way.
Although tensions had also been reported between al-Haddad and Qatar, Qatari coverage followed the same pattern: implicit support for Hamas, caution about harming a popular symbol, and continued positioning of the Qatari network as a force that shapes the narrative.
Doha’s symbolic support for Hamas intensified in mid-May, when the Turkish foreign minister visited Doha and met with al-Hayya in a meeting documented and circulated by Qatari media and on social media. That public release effectively undercut some of the rumors that Hamas’s leadership might be expelled from Doha.
As part of Qatar’s balancing act, senior Qatari leaders had not been photographed with Hamas leaders in Doha since Oct. 7, 2023. Instead, before the war, Qatar had served as a platform for Hamas meetings with delegations from Turkey, Malaysia and Iran. During the war with Iran, Qatar stopped publicizing such meetings. Their reappearance signaled that Doha was again prepared to facilitate and support these contacts openly.
Qatar’s interest in preserving its relationship with Hamas also had broader strategic justifications. Its role as a key mediator between Israel, the U.S. and Hamas depended in large part on direct access to the organization’s leadership. Doha also sought to maintain and expand its influence inside the Gaza Strip. It did so not only through political mediation and humanitarian aid, but also through longer-term investments in civilian funds and initiatives. One such body was the Al Fakhoora foundation, which had been active in Gaza during the war as early as 2024 and invests in education and social rehabilitation.
The war did create real tension between Qatar and Hamas, but interpretations that described a deep rupture—or even a complete break—proved overstated. Doha still needs the relationship: It helps preserve Qatar’s standing as a regional mediator and contributes to its efforts to consolidate its influence in Gaza.
For that reason, some of the reports of a “crisis” between Doha and Hamas should be read as part of a calculated Qatari diplomatic maneuver, rather than as evidence of a fundamental shift in the relationship.
In any case, Qatar’s relationship with Hamas cannot be assessed based on public statements alone. It also requires attention to the assistance, influence and coordination mechanisms that continue to operate in parallel, and should include an examination of claims raised before Oct. 7 that some of the humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza indirectly helped strengthen Hamas.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
