Israeli Media: Qatar-Hamas Coordination Revealed in Internal Documents

Qatar-Hamas coor­di­na­tion is at the cen­ter of new­ly sur­faced inter­nal doc­u­ments revealed in Israeli media. In one let­ter, a Hamas leader informed Yahya Sin­war that the Emir of Qatar had agreed to covert­ly fund the group’s armed resis­tance. On 10 June 2024, The Times of Israel report­ed that leaked mate­ri­als indi­cat­ed Qatar had main­tained its long-stand­ing strate­gic, finan­cial, and polit­i­cal sup­port for Hamas lead­er­ship in the lead-up to Octo­ber 7. The arti­cle begins:

Doc­u­ments report­ed­ly retrieved by the Israeli mil­i­tary from Gaza dur­ing the war sug­gest exten­sive coor­di­na­tion and sup­port between Hamas and Qatar, includ­ing finan­cial trans­fers, polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing, and strat­e­gy dis­cus­sions. One doc­u­ment was said to detail how Hamas viewed Qatar as its most reli­able state spon­sor. Anoth­er ref­er­enced mul­ti­ple high-lev­el meet­ings between Hamas offi­cials and Qatari rep­re­sen­ta­tives, includ­ing intel­li­gence brief­in­gs. Israeli offi­cials claimed the mate­r­i­al rein­forces long-stand­ing con­cerns over Qatar’s ties to ter­ror groups. The doc­u­ments also ref­er­enced efforts by Qatar to influ­ence region­al opin­ion through media chan­nels. Israeli sources described the cache as a “sig­nif­i­cant intel­li­gence find.”

Read more: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-documents-reportedly-show-deep-ties-coordination-between-qatar-terror-group

Key Points

• Inter­nal Hamas records indi­cate strate­gic and finan­cial ties between the group and the Qatari government.

• Doc­u­ments include ref­er­ences to intel­li­gence brief­in­gs and diplo­mat­ic coor­di­na­tion with Qatari officials.

• Israeli sources argue the find­ings con­firm Qatar’s ongo­ing patron­age of Hamas oper­a­tions in Gaza.

• Media influ­ence oper­a­tions alleged­ly linked to Qatar are out­lined as tools to sway region­al narratives.

Qatar and Hamas: Financing, Media, & Transnational Ties

Qatar’s sup­port for Hamas is shaped by a web of polit­i­cal, finan­cial, and ide­o­log­i­cal con­nec­tions, as revealed by a series of inves­ti­ga­tions by the GIOR. The Dutch Hamas financ­ing tri­al exposed how Qatar-fund­ed enti­ties alleged­ly facil­i­tat­ed mon­ey trans­fers to Gaza, while the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a pro-Hamas activist in a Dutch trade mis­sion to Qatar fur­ther demon­strat­ed direct links between Qatari insti­tu­tions and Hamas sup­port­ers. Qatar’s broad­er strat­e­gy of “rent­ed pow­er,” as detailed in a book on Qatar’s use of Islamists and media out­lets, lever­ages net­works and plat­forms to ampli­fy its influ­ence. Qatar has also facil­i­tat­ed meet­ings between Hamas and oth­er Islamist groups, such as the Tal­iban, as report­ed by cov­er­age of glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups and Hamas prais­ing Tal­iban lead­er­ship.

Mean­while, Qatar’s exten­sive fund­ing of US acad­e­mia–over $2.7 bil­lion between 2014 and 2019–has raised con­cerns about its abil­i­ty to shape nar­ra­tives and build insti­tu­tion­al rela­tion­ships. Qatar’s image man­age­ment efforts, such as those involv­ing Netanyahu aides’ PR cam­paign, fur­ther illus­trate its mul­ti­fac­eted approach to influ­ence. In March 2025, Doha accused the Shin Bet of “scape­goat­ing Qatar” after the Israeli secu­ri­ty agency had iden­ti­fied “the flow of mon­ey from Qatar to Gaza and its deliv­ery to Hamas’s mil­i­tary wing” as one key rea­son why Hamas was able to build up its offen­sive power.

Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu was warned at least twice before the Hamas onslaught of Octo­ber 7 that the ter­ror group’s mil­i­tary chief Muham­mad Deif had been appro­pri­at­ing funds pro­vid­ed by Qatar to Gaza with the premier’s approval.

Exter­nal References:

• Netanyahu was warned twice that Qatari cash was fund­ing Hamas mil­i­tary wing – reports
• Qatar blasts Shin Bet probe that said Doha’s funds to Gaza helped Hamas launch Oct. 7
• Since Hamas’ Octo­ber 7 Attack On Israel, Qatar’s Unre­served Sup­port For Hamas, Incite­ment Against Israel, Continues

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.