https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-asked-qatar-to-boost-financial-assistance-to-gaza-a-month-before-oct-7-report/Israel asked Qatar to boost financial assistance to Gaza a month before Oct. 7 — reportIsrael asked Qatar to increase the financial assistance it was giving to Gaza one month before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre, the Yedioth Aharonoth daily reported Friday.
In September 2023, Israeli officials met at a Jerusalem hotel with Mohammed al-Emadi, the Qatari envoy to Gaza, who oversaw the delivery of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from Qatar to Gaza between 2018 and 2021, the report said. There, they asked him to increase the amount of fuel purchased from Egypt by Doha for the benefit of Gaza’s Hamas government.
Qatar, since 2021, had been purchasing fuel from Egypt, which it would then gift to Hamas in Gaza. The fuel was then sold by the terror group to gas stations inside the Strip, thus bringing money to the regime to pay its own officials and commanders.
Israel was a tacit party to the arrangement, which allowed it to avoid directly funding the terror group’s government while still propping it up to keep the Strip stable.
Qatar provided tens of millions of dollars in cash to Gaza every month from 2018 until the October 7, 2023, attack, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
Qatar’s role in supporting Hamas has become a major issue in Israel since the October 7 attack triggered the subsequent regional war.
The questions have been compounded by an active criminal investigation into alleged illicit ties between Doha and some of Netanyahu’s top aides, who are suspected of spearheading a pro-Qatari public relations campaign during the war.
