Leaked Documents: Israel Itself Had a Direct Hand in Qatar's Money Transfers to Gaza

Recently leaked secret documents show that Israel itself had a direct hand in the money Qatar sent to the Gaza Strip. Even while publicly criticising the Qatari government, senior Israeli officials privately lobbied to keep those transfers flowing. The findings come from a detailed investigation by the US magazine Time.

The report is based on letters and interviews of senior Israeli, American and Arab government officials. It shows that successive Israeli governments directly cooperated in creating, running and sustaining the system through which Qatari aid reached Hamas-ruled Gaza for years.

Among the disclosed documents is a 2020 letter from then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Thanking Qatar for its humanitarian cooperation in Gaza, Cohen wrote that the aid played a vital role in improving the humanitarian situation in the strip and in maintaining regional peace and security.

In another letter the same year, an official of Israel's National Security Council — identified in the report as R. L. Maoz — explicitly asked Qatar to continue the financial grants. He urged that Qatar keep sending its humanitarian grants through the existing system, and requested that the money be sent directly through Ambassador Mohammed Al-Emadi, chairman of the Qatar Committee for the reconstruction of Gaza, rather than through any intermediary or another country.

According to Time, Qatari officials were deeply angered by this Israeli double standard. On one side, Israeli leaders publicly condemned Doha for funding Hamas; on the other, they privately asked it to continue the grants. A senior official from Trump's first term told the magazine that, seeing this behaviour, Qatar in 2018 demanded written proof to be sure Israel's direct consent was behind the arrangement.

Qatar began sending money to Gaza after Hamas took control of the strip in 2007. The investigation found that by 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had approved a new system, giving Israel a direct role in sending relief goods and medicine, selecting which families were eligible for money, paying allowances and increasing Gaza's electricity supply.

The cooperation was later strengthened through a formal agreement among Israel, Qatar and the United Nations. On 2 October 2018, the three parties signed a deal to fund fuel purchases for Gaza. In August 2021, Qatar pledged $40 million to a new project to give about 100,000 Palestinian families $100 a month for four months; the agreement was later extended.

Diplomats involved in the system said Israel itself vetted the lists of Palestinian families who would receive grants and monitored the whole distribution system. The money was sent through the UN World Food Programme, and selected families received a text message before collecting money from designated centres.

A July 2019 letter found in the investigation shows Qatar informing the Netanyahu government that it had sent $6 million for 20,000 Palestinians selected by Israel — $300 per family. Time noted, however, that it is unclear how many recipients were directly linked to Hamas or had relatives connected to it.

Responding to the investigation, Qatar stated clearly that if any of the grant money sent to Gaza reached Hamas, the full responsibility lies with Israel. A spokesperson for Qatar's international media office said all Qatari grants were sent for ordinary Palestinians in Gaza, and the whole operation was conducted in coordination with Israeli authorities and international partners.

He added: 'If politically motivated individuals or groups claim against us that this money reached Hamas, the responsibility falls on Israel, because they created the entire fund distribution system and they supervised it.'

Evidence in the investigation also shows that in 2023 Qatar wanted to change the relief distribution system so that ordinary Gazans would not remain fully dependent on Hamas or the Israeli government. But according to Israeli and other international sources, the Netanyahu government wanted to keep the old system in place. With the leaked documents sparking fresh debate, the politics of that old arrangement is back at the centre of discussion.