Qatar served as Hamas’s indispensable ally and mulled ways to foil the 2020 Trump peace plan alongside Iran and Turkey, according to documents obtained by Israeli security forces in the Gaza Strip, Hebrew media reported on Sunday.
The documents further indicated the importance that Hamas placed on Qatar’s funding, even beyond the Gaza Strip, according to Channel 12 News.
The Qatari funds were “the main lifeline of the movement,” then-Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh told then-Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani (today Qatar’s prime minister) in a face-to-face meeting in 2019, according to the documents.
Moreover, a secret Palestinian Authority report recorded discussions between Qatari intelligence personnel and a Hamas representative about special training for Hamas fighters on military bases in Qatar and Turkey, as well as the integration of Palestinian refugees from Syria into Hamas battalions in Lebanon, according to Channel 12.
In an undated Hamas report that dealt with the possibility of Qatar joining the Abraham Accords—the 2020-2021 bilateral normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab states—it was stated that it would spell the “end of the Palestinian national project.”
The documents further revealed that Hamas sought to increase the influence of Qatar in the Gaza Strip at the expense of Egypt.
Then-Hamas leader and terror master Yahaya Sinwar wrote in a memo to Haniyeh, “The Egyptians were present in an effort to contain the escalation [with Israel in the summer of 2020], but we left them empty-handed and out of the picture. In their place came the Qataris—to whom we handed the opportunity to reap the fruits of diplomacy.”
The pair, Sinwar and Haniyeh, have since been killed by Israel.
A Hamas delegation that visited Iran on an unspecified date heard from an Iranian Foreign Ministry official that Tehran was “glad about the Qatari-Turkish support” for the Gazan terrorist dictatorship, Channel 12 reported.
As for the Trump peace plan, also known as the “Deal of the Century,” Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani held an emergency meeting in June, 2019 with then-senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in which he expressed his concern that Oman could normalize ties with Israel, more than a year before the Abraham Accords were signed.
“Regarding Palestine, Oman is on one side and we are on the other,” Al Thani was quoted as saying.
“Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which are advancing normalization with Israel, will find themselves isolated, whereas Pakistan and Malaysia, which oppose normalization, are in a strong position,” he added, according to the documents.
“We must cooperate to oppose and thwart the Deal of the Century,” Mashal told him at the time.
The proposal put forward during Trump’s first presidential tenure sought a permanent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and served as the springboard for the subsequent normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
The plan, however, was rejected by the Palestinian Authority.
In May, 2021, Haniyeh informed Sinwar of a private meeting he held with Al Thani, following the Israel Defense Forces’ “Operation Guardian of the Walls.”
“In a private meeting between us, after the delegation had departed, we reassured [the emir] regarding the resistance. We agreed on discreet financial support. I would ask that you write a letter focusing on the military campaign and your urgent needs—and dedicate the victory [in ‘Operation Guardian of the Walls’] to His Excellency,” Haniyeh wrote at the time.
In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Qatar has taken a significant role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas in ceasefire negotiations. Doha has also been allowed by Jerusalem to transfer cash into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian causes for years, an issue which has served as a flashpoint of debate within Israel.
