Israel helped channel Qatari aid to Gaza, Time reports

Israel helped facilitate nearly $2 billion in Qatari payments to Gaza over more than a decade and repeatedly asked Doha to keep the funding going, according to a Time investigation published on Sunday and described by RT. The account cites official correspondence and testimony from senior Israeli, US and Arab officials.

The reporting raises questions about the gap between Israel’s private support for the payment arrangements and public accusations by Israeli officials that Qatar was financing Hamas. Payments into Hamas-controlled Gaza do not, by themselves, establish that the money was paid to the group or used for its armed activities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the policy as a way to prevent a humanitarian crisis and sustain essential services in Gaza, the magazine reported. His office declined to comment on the latest findings. Qatar said its assistance was intended for Palestinian civilians and delivered through arrangements coordinated with Israel and international partners.

Reported Israeli role extended beyond approving aid

According to the account of Time’s findings, Israeli officials helped determine recipients, enabled cash deliveries into Gaza and urged Qatar to maintain payments. The arrangements included cash transported in suitcases as well as a UN-backed payment mechanism.

The magazine cited a 2020 letter in which then-Mossad director Yossi Cohen thanked Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for the assistance. It also reported that David Barnea, who later led Mossad, visited Doha two weeks before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, to request another two months of funding.

A source from Donald Trump’s first US administration told the magazine that Qatari officials were angered by the contrast between Israel’s public accusations and its private requests to continue the payments.

What the payments reportedly covered

An analysis presented to Israeli ministers put Qatar’s cumulative payments to Gaza at roughly $1.1 billion by 2018. The reported uses included humanitarian assistance, fuel and government salaries.

Under the arrangements described, Qatar financed fuel and electricity bought from Israel and projects delivered through the UN. Some of Gaza’s poorest families also received monthly payments of $100, distributed by the World Food Programme after Israeli authorities vetted recipients.

The funding came under renewed scrutiny after the October 7 attack. Qatar denied that the money was intended for Hamas and argued that Israel bore responsibility for any funds that reached the group because it had overseen delivery and established the mechanism. That is Doha’s position, not an independently established finding about responsibility or the ultimate destination of the funds.