Qatar paid $30 million per month to Hamas via an emissary, according to a Radio France investigation

On August 5, 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu brings together his ministers. The prime minister leads a center-right coalition. He is at the head of the country for the fourth time since 1996. That day, he has an announcement to make. He obviously has no idea that she will help change the course of history. From now on, Israel will authorize an envoy from Qatar to land every month on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport and then go to Gaza, with suitcases of cash intended for the leaders of Hamas. The Qatari diplomat is called Mohammed Al-Amadi. In this video, he whispers in the ear of the current leader of Hamas, demanding that the situation remain calm.

Because for several weeks, the situation in Gaza has been explosive. First, Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since the 2007 coup, is dry. The Palestinian Authority has stopped paying money and is finding it increasingly difficult to pay its civil servants in the enclave. And then Egypt closed dozens of smuggling tunnels between the Sinai desert and Gaza at the instigation of President Al-Sissi, opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore to Hamas. For the Islamist organization, this means fewer taxes. We must act quickly, alert the international community which can then put pressure on Israel. Hamas is organizing what are called "return marches."

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Every Friday, Palestinians in Gaza demonstrate near the separation barrier which will be breached on October 7, 2023. Officially, they demand the right of return to land that belonged to them before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In response, the army of the Jewish state fires live ammunition. The images are going around the world. According to the United Nations, 258 Palestinians died during these return marches, including at least 46 children. Two Israeli soldiers lose their lives. Hamas' plan worked. The international community now demands a commensurate humanitarian response from Israel. However, the Jewish state cannot directly pay money to an organization considered terrorist by the United States and the European Union. Qatar will therefore serve as an intermediary.

Its leaders share, in fact, with Hamas a certain number of values ​​linked to the Sunni Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood and the small emirate is at that time isolated regionally after the severance of its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt who accuse it of financing terrorism.

On August 5, 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu therefore announced to his ministers a compromise that suits everyone. Israel reduces the pressure on its allies without compromising itself in the direct financing of an enemy while Qatar loosens the diplomatic stranglehold it has been subjected to for a year. For Palestinian researcher Qossay Hamed, Hamas clearly exploited these return marches: "Gaza was in a critical humanitarian situation. Hamas therefore decided to increase pressure on the international community, on Israel and on the Arab regimes to make them move. That's how the return marches began."

30 million dollars paid every month

However, was Qatar's money used to finance the terrorist attacks of October 7? To answer this question, we must first go to Gaza to interview the main actors of the time. This is impossible today: three years after the massacre, Israel still prevents international journalists from accessing the enclave. We therefore worked with Palestinian journalists who regularly collaborate with Radio France. Last April, Rami Almaghari met Ahmad Youssef, the former advisor to Prime Minister Ismaël Haniyeh assassinated on July 31, 2024. He was, like nearly a million Palestinians today, in a displaced persons camp: "The Qatari emissary Al-Amadi brought $30 million every month, explains Ahmad Youssef. This was so that there would be no explosion of violence. Qatar understood that. It tried to help. It was money that was used for humanitarian purposes. There is no doubt that it was not used for terrorist activities,” assures the former advisor to the Hamas Prime Minister. According to him, “the money for the Al-Qassam brigades [the armed wing of Hamas which organized and implemented the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023] came from the Iranians, Hezbollah, charities and other Islamist movements.”

Contacted by the Radio France investigation unit, a Qatari spokesperson acknowledged that money had indeed been transferred to Gaza. But it says it was intended for Palestinian civilians under the control of Israeli security agencies. Doha claims not to be responsible for the way in which these funds were then allocated. And if Hamas received money, specifies this representative of the emirate, Qatar is not responsible.

Of the 30 million allocated monthly by Qatar, a third was given to families in need. They regularly received $100 each. Another third was used to pay Hamas civil servants and the final third was invested in fuel to operate Gaza's only power plant.

Well-organized embezzlement

In its press release addressed to the investigation unit of Radio France Doha specifies that "nothing was delivered directly by Qatar", sheltering behind the guarantees of control provided by the Israelis and the United Nations in particular. But what Qatar fails to take into account is that once in Gaza, the money was not traced.

Hamas exercises its dictatorial power in the enclave and it is very complicated, especially in times of war, to get opponents to speak freely. However, one man agreed to speak to us, on condition of protecting his identity. He was a senior leader of the Palestinian Authority, a member of Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat, therefore opposed to Hamas. He worked closely with Mohammed Al-Amadi, the Qatari suitcase carrier whom he met several times at the Machtal Hotel in Gaza City. For him, there was not much doubt about the destination of Qatar's money. He even describes precisely the mechanisms of embezzlement for the benefit of the Al-Qassam brigades: "A third of the Qatari money was intended for the electricity production company. Hamas invoiced and then paid the income to its armed wing. There was another source of financing: poor Palestinians in Gaza each received 100 dollars. When they changed the money, they had to receive 360 shekels at the time, depending on the exchange rate "It's the Israeli currency that we use in Gaza. The official exchange rate was one dollar for 3.60 shekels. In reality, we only gave you 300 shekels, which is the equivalent of 20 dollars: a fifth of the amount per family. A well-functioning system, therefore, which according to this Fatah official allowed the Al-Qassam brigades to recover part of the Qatari money and therefore potentially to finance the terrorist attack of October 7.

The Prime Minister takes responsibility for his intelligence services

The decision is made. This is what we call in Israel the "Conception", in other words, the idea that by letting Qatar's money flow freely into Gaza, Israel will guarantee its security. A spokesperson for Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, who wanted to remain anonymous assures us that it was "under pressure from Europe and the United States", and therefore under duress, that the Prime Minister accepted the transfers of funds. In an interview given on the Israeli television channel I24 last month, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that "Qatar's support was authorized after Israeli security agencies, whether Shin Beth or Mossad [the equivalent of the DGSI and DGSE in Israel] recommended it for humanitarian reasons. Shin Beh and Mossad wanted to provide a humanitarian response (...) It was a mistake."

“Netanyahu wanted Hamas to continue to be strong”

A former member of the Mossad, in charge between 2003 and 2016 of a unit specializing in the analysis of money flows intended for terrorism, has another analysis. His name is Udi Levy: "Benyamin Netanyahu was totally opposed to the Palestinian Authority and the idea that it could create a state. His strategy was the following: if we divide Gaza ruled by Hamas and the West Bank administered by the Palestinian Authority, we will never have a state. It's hard to say, but in this perspective, Hamas was a good thing for Israel. Netanyahu may have thought that the situation was under control. But it was a huge mistake."

Udi Levy claims to have been the first to sound the alarm. As soon as Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007, he reported to his superiors the existence of funds transferred to the enclave by a charitable organization, the "Qatar Islamic charity", well known according to him for financing radical elements all over the world: "Ehud Olmert, first Prime Minister, supported us. Netanyahu arrived in 2009 and he did not react. We of course warned him. We then had the possibility of setting up operations against Hamas, but he never wanted to follow through on them. It is likely that the Prime Minister simply wanted Hamas to continue to be strong and to control Gaza.

According to Udi Levy, if Qatar's money was the main source of funding for Hamas, it was not the only one: "Iran also started sending money and Hamas collected 30% taxes on all goods that entered Gaza," he said. missiles. That's exactly what happened." Udi Levy's unit was disbanded in 2016 and the former Mossad agent says he was forced to resign. He considers that this change of priority was a strategic error since, he says: "The fight against the financing of terrorism was reduced drastically. That's when Hamas began to receive money to build its incredible structures. This is the beginning, he concludes, of the process which resulted in the October 7 massacre."

“The price we will pay in the long term will be a serious attack on our national security”

It should be noted that Benjamin Netanyahu filed a defamation complaint against Udi Levy after the former Mossad agent publicly hypothesized that the Prime Minister had directly received money from Qatar. On the other hand, he did not pursue the fact that he was warned in 2009 of the financing of Hamas by Qatar. Eight years later, a few weeks after the meeting of August 5, 2018, a minister of Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the door of the government for the same reasons. On November 14, 2018, Avigdor Lieberman said: “What we are currently doing as a state is buying calm in the short term, but the price we will pay in the long term will be a serious attack on our national security.”

Terrible omen, five years before the massacre of October 7.

Power changes hands, but Qatar continues to transfer money to Gaza

Benyamin Netanyahu loses the elections of March 23, 2021. He is replaced by Naftali Bennett then a year later by Yaïr Lapid. It is therefore other officials who now have access to the assessments of the intelligence services. The observation at that time is clear, as stated by Eyal Hulata, a former Mossad who became national security advisor between 2021 and 2023: "The decision to buy calm in Gaza was taken out of convenience. It was a very bad decision. You should never buy calm at the risk of a future threat. The facts were clear. The information was as follows: Hamas was using this money. The security services were telling the government that had a risk and that risk needed to be mitigated." The risk is therefore identified, but it is not eliminated.

The government of Naftali Bennett puts an end to the transfer of cash, by definition very difficult to trace, and sets up a new system, as Eyal Hulata explains: "The most important thing was to eliminate the flow of cash. So we found a mechanism. Hamas collected the money, but it was then transferred to UN agencies which converted it into food vouchers. These food vouchers were sent to Gaza then distributed to families that we had pre-selected via our internal secret services Except that it was not enough. We reduced the risk, but we did not put an end to it. An admission of failure that Eyal Hulata explains by the fact that it was impossible, at the time, to interrupt humanitarian aid. However, it must be remembered that Israel has been exercising an illegal blockade under international law on Gaza since 2007 and is therefore also responsible for this humanitarian situation.

The return of the cash suitcase carrier

In December 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu returns to power. After 18 months in opposition, he formed the most far-right coalition in Israeli history. A man also comes back into the equation, Qatari cash suitcase carrier Mohammed Al-Amadi. Just one month before the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, the Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonot reveals that a meeting was organized in a Jerusalem hotel, in its presence, at the request of the Jewish state, to increase money transfers to Hamas via Qatar. This is the same message that will be repeated just a week before the attacks by the Mossad chief visiting Doha.

For the former national security adviser, Eyal Hulata, this is proof of the blindness of the Israeli government and services which did not see the worst attack in the country's history coming: "Netanyahu made the decision to continue the same strategy. Some suggested that he put an end to the transfer of money until he received guarantees from Qatar that he would not finance Hamas. Netanyahu did not follow any of this advice and continued his strategy when an investigation is launched, all periods will be examined, particularly the one during which I was national security advisor.

Towards an independent commission of inquiry?

This is the issue of the moment: the entire opposition is calling for the establishment of an independent state commission of inquiry to shed light on the faults which led to the massacre of October 7. Benjamin Netanyahu refuses, which is unprecedented in the history of