Israel-Hamas war live: Gaza becoming a ‘graveyard for children’, UN chief says; 10,000 Palestinians killed, says Gaza health ministry
"How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel "Ehud Barak blames Binyamin Netanyahu for “the greatest failure in Israel’s history” Israel says it kills second Hamas commander in refugee camp, first evacuees leave Gaza See also: Vengeance Is Not a Policy" "
António Guterres warn ‘no one is safe’ as he repeats call for humanitarian ceasefire; over 4,000 children among the dead in Gaza
1h ago - About 80 dual nationals and 17 medical evacuees leave Gaza into Egypt - report 2h ago - UN chief says Gaza is becoming a 'graveyard for children' 3h ago - Israel-Hamas war is deadliest ever for UN aid workers, with at least 88 killed 4h ago - IDF: Key Hamas commander killed in targeted airstrike 4h ago - Israel responds to Lebanon rocket attack 4h ago - Summary of the day so far … 6h ago - South Africa: 'We believe nature of Israel's response has become one of collective punishment' 6h ago - Israel welcomes deployment of US nuclear submarine in region as 'deterring, stabilising factor' 6h ago - Blinken: tour has prevented escalation, and US working 'very aggressively' on more humanitarian aid for Gaza 6h ago - Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing reopens for limited evacuation of foreign nationals 6h ago - Over 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza – health ministry 10h ago - Borrell: situation in Middle East is 'outcome of collective political and moral failure' 10h ago - Summary of the day so far … 12h ago - Borne: French death toll from 7 October Hamas attack has risen to 40 12h ago - UK says it is temporarily withdrawing some British embassy staff from Lebanon 14h ago - Israeli military encircles Gaza City 14h ago Heads of UN agencies call for ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in rare joint statement 15h ago - Blinken to hold talks in Turkey in next leg of diplomatic tour 16h ago - Jordan airdrops medical supplies to Gaza hospital 16h ago - Opening summary
A Palestinian man in Khan Yunis, on the southern Gaza Strip, as others check the rubble of a building. Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
Léonie Chao-Fong (now); Richard Luscombe, Martin Belam and Helen Livingstone (earlier) Tue 7 Nov 2023 06.08 AEDT First published on Mon 6 Nov 2023 14.40 AEDT
From 2h ago 04.39 AEDT UN chief says Gaza is becoming a 'graveyard for children' Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children, says António Guterres – video
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that “no one is safe” in Gaza as he reiterated his urgent call for a humanitarian ceasefire.
The situation in Gaza is “more than a humanitarian crisis, it is a crisis of humanity”, Guterres said during a briefing at the UN’s headquarters on Monday.
Israeli ground operations and bombardments are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities including shelters, he said. The protection of civilians “must be paramount”, he said.
-- I’m deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing. Let me be clear, no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law. --
He said Gaza was “becoming a graveyard for children” with hundreds of boys and girls reportedly killed or injured every day, he said.
-- More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organisation. --
Updated at 05.42 AEDT 44s ago14.16 EST Patrick Wintour
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has ended his tour of the Middle East admitting that his efforts to secure a sustained humanitarian pause and greater constraint in Israel’s assault on Gaza was still “a work in progress”.
His comments on Monday followed a meeting with Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, in Ankara. He will now head to a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Japan where he will brief colleagues on the US approach to the crisis, and its impact on western standing.
The number of aid trucks crossing the Egyptian border into Gaza .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza at the Rafah crossing went down from 100 on Friday to closer to 30 in the following days. ------ 24m ago 06.08 AEDT
More than half a million people in northern Gaza face death by starvation as food supplies run “perilously” low, an international charity has warned.
In a statement on Monday, ActionAid said that a “near-total depletion” of food and water supplies is endangering the lives of civilians trapped in northern Gaza who have barely survived nearly a month of intense bombardment.
Riham Jafari, coordinator of advocacy and communication for ActionAid Palestine, said:
Cases of dehydration and malnutrition are increasing rapidly. Hospitals, which have remained over capacity for weeks on end, can offer no solace to those on the brink of starvation as medical supplies run low, fuel is scarce, and bombs are indiscriminately dropped across Gaza including on the footsteps of hospitals.
1h ago 05.36 AEDT
US President Joe Biden has today spoken with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a White House official said.
The two leaders discussed the potential for tactical pauses in strikes on Gaza during their phone call, according to national security spokesperson John Kirby.
Biden and Netanyahu also discussed the situation in the West Bank, he said.
Updated at 05.45 AEDT 1h ago 05.25 AEDT
Daniel Boffey
Organisers of pro-Palestine marches that have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets of London have raised fresh concerns that a major protest planned for Saturday could be banned.
Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, held a meeting with senior Metropolitan police officers on Monday to finalise details of the route – but there is growing anxiety that the home secretary, Suella Braverman, will intervene.
The protest is scheduled to start at 12.45pm on Saturday 11 November – Remembrance Day – at Hyde Park Corner and end at the US embassy in south-west London, more than a mile from the Cenotaph, where formal remembrance events will be held the next day.
The prime minister’s spokesperson earlier on Monday described the planned event as “provocative” and “disrespectful”.
The marchers are calling for a ceasefire in the war that broke out last month after Hamas killed 1,400 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages. Thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed in the Israeli military operation since, according to Gaza’s health authority.
The Met police could apply to the home secretary for a ban under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 on the grounds that there is a risk of serious disorder.
“I would say now, there are absolutely no legitimate grounds for doing that,” Jamal said.
Some time ago, we indicated that on the 11th, we would not be going anywhere near [the Cenotaph] … We knew that would be … inappropriate.
Jamal added:
We’ve not had that information [of an imminent ban] from the police. But what I’m aware of is the police are under immense pressure.
1h ago 05.15 AEDT
About 80 dual nationals and 17 medical evacuees leave Gaza into Egypt - report
Dozens of foreign passport holders and some medical evacuees passed through the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt on Monday, Reuters reported, citing Egyptian security sources.
Evacuations resumed following a two-day suspension after an ambulance was hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza on Friday. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said 15 people were killed and 60 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a convoy of ambulances transporting injured people. The Israeli military said, without showing evidence, that the vehicle was carrying Hamas militants.
About 80 dual nationals and 17 medical evacuees had left through Rafah by early Monday evening, according to Egyptian security sources.
Egypt had been seeking guarantees for the safety of ambulances used for evacuations, including escorts from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Egyptian security sources said.
The ICRC said it had escorted a four-ambulance convoy of patients from the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to the Rafah border on Monday.
Updated at 05.31 AEDT 2h ago 04.59 AEDT
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said it is carrying out airstrikes against sites belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The IDF statement came after it said it had identified about 30 launches from Lebanon towards northern Israel earlier on Monday.
The Israeli army said it was “responding with artillery fire toward the origin of the launches”.
UN chief António Guterres said the humanitarian aid that is coming through the Rafah border crossing is not nearly enough for the 2.7 million people in Gaza.
“The trickle of assistance does not meet the ocean of needs,” he said.
Just over 400 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza in the past two weeks, compared with 500 each day before the conflict, he said. Those trucks that have gone into Gaza have not included fuel, he added.
Without fuel, babies in incubators and patients on life support will die. Water cannot be pumped or purified. Raw sewage could soon start gushing on to the streets, further spreading disease.
Updated at 05.01 AEDT 2h ago04.39 AEDT
UN chief says Gaza is becoming a 'graveyard for children' Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children, says António Guterres – video
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has warned that “no one is safe” in Gaza as he reiterated his urgent call for a humanitarian ceasefire.
The situation in Gaza is “more than a humanitarian crisis, it is a crisis of humanity”, Guterres said during a briefing at the UN’s headquarters on Monday.
Israeli ground operations and bombardments are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities including shelters, he said. The protection of civilians “must be paramount”, he said.
" I’m deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing. Let me be clear, no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.
He said Gaza was “becoming a graveyard for children” with hundreds of boys and girls reportedly killed or injured every day, he said.
" More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in any comparable period in the history of our organisation.
Updated at 05.42 AEDT 3h ago 04.07 AEDT
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said its ambulances are being impeded by road closures around al-Quds hospital in Gaza City.
The closure of roads is affecting the organisation’s ability to reach the wounded, it said.
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the news wires from Gaza.
People flee following Israeli air strikes on a neighbourhood in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Photograph: Yasser Qudih/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Deir Al Balah, Gaza. Photograph: Reuters
Palestinians evacuating to the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA
Destruction and chaos caused by Israeli attacks on Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Deir Al Balah, Gaza. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images
3h ago 03.38 AEDT
Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, has said he does not regret describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “something more approaching revenge”.
The Irish taoiseach, speaking to journalists during a visit to South Korea last week, said:
" I strongly believe that ... Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas, that they cannot do this again.
But he added:
" What I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self defence. It looks, resembles something more approaching revenge. That’s not where we should be. And I don’t think that’s how Israel will guarantee future freedom and future security.
On Monday, Varadkar was asked whether he believed the comment had hampered diplomatic relations with Israel over the exit of Irish citizens from Gaza.
He replied that he did not believe that it had, PA news agency reported.
Asked if he regretted using the word revenge, he replied: “I don’t, no.” He later added:
" When the tánaiste [Micheál Martin] and I take the positions that we do, we do so because we think it’s the right thing.
Ultimately, this is about civilians. Israeli civilians who died and were injured, and also Palestinians who are now experiencing a very difficult situation.
We’ve always taken a view since day one that we condemn Hamas’ attack unequivocally, no excuse for it whatsoever.
Israel has a right to defend itself, but it has to do so in a way that’s proportionate and in line with humanitarian law.
Updated at 03.47 AEDT 3h ago03.24 AEDT
Lisa O'Carroll
Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo, has said that “what is happening in Gaza today is no longer proportionate”.
He stressed the Belgian government’s condemnation of the 7 October massacre by Hamas and Israel’s right to defend itself.
But he said in Brussels:
"If one bombs an entire refugee camp with the intention of eliminating one terrorist, then I don’t think that is proportionate anymore. Something like that is a bridge too far.
De Croo added it was “completely logical” that “a solution” was sought for Hamas, but “the question is how the solution should be found” during political dialogue, a pause in the fighting and the release of all hostages.
Several Belgian media reported him as saying:
" Our country does not take sides. What we do choose is an end to violence and thousands of civilian victims.
Updated at 03.36 AEDT 3h ago03.18 AEDT
Israel-Hamas war is deadliest ever for UN aid workers, with at least 88 killed
Kaamil Ahmed
The deaths of scores of aid workers in airstrikes on Gaza over the past month has made the conflict the deadliest ever for UN workers.
UN agency leaders called on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access to the territory. They called for both Israel and Hamas to respect international law.
In a joint statement, signatories including the UN human rights commissioner, Volker Turk; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization; and the UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said:
" It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.
Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on – including hospitals, shelters and schools – must be protected. More aid – food, water, medicine and of course fuel – must enter Gaza safely, swiftly and at the scale needed, and must reach people in need, especially women and children, wherever they are.
‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas
"How Netanyahu's Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel [...]Supporting Hamas rule in Gaza, those critics say, allowed Netanyahu to confine the Palestinian Authority to the West Bank and weaken it, dividing the Palestinians into two mutually antagonistic blocs. "Ehud Barak blames Binyamin Netanyahu for “the greatest failure in Israel’s history” Israel says it kills second Hamas commander in refugee camp, first evacuees leave Gaza See also: Vengeance Is Not a Policy""
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.
Hamas fighters in 2021 in Gaza City. Felipe Dana/Associated Press
By Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman Reporting from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
Dec. 10, 2023 Leer en español
Just weeks before Hamas launched the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the head of Mossad arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with Qatari officials.
For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
During his meetings in September with the Qatari officials, according to several people familiar with the secret discussions, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?
Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes. The Israeli government still welcomed the money from Doha.
Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
The Qatari payments, while ostensibly a secret, have been widely known and discussed in the Israeli news media for years. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks. Mr. Netanyahu has lashed back at that criticism, calling the suggestion .. https://www.politico.eu/article/benjamin-netanyahu-hamas-qatar-money-war-israel-gaza-palestine/ .. that he tried to empower Hamas “ridiculous.”
A house in Kibbutz Be’eri, in Israel, that was overrun by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7. Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
In interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli, American and Qatari officials, and officials from other Middle Eastern governments, The New York Times unearthed new details about the origins of the policy, the controversies that erupted inside the Israeli government and the lengths that Mr. Netanyahu went to in order to shield the Qataris from criticism and keep the money flowing.
[Well, IF you see another as inherently inferior to you then it is natural that you are going to underestimate them, isn't it. It's more that time for Israeli leaders to see Palestinians as fellow human beings. Only then will Israel have a chance at ever having peace.]
Even as the Israeli military obtained battle plans for a Hamas invasion and analysts observed significant terrorism exercises just over the border in Gaza, the payments continued. For years, Israeli intelligence officers even escorted a Qatari official into Gaza, where he doled out money from suitcases filled with millions of dollars.
The money from Qatar had humanitarian goals like paying government salaries in Gaza and buying fuel to keep a power plant running. But Israeli intelligence officials now believe that the money had a role in the success of the Oct. 7 attacks, if only because the donations allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations. Separately, Israeli intelligence has long assessed that Qatar uses other channels to secretly fund Hamas’ military wing, an accusation that Qatar’s government has denied.
“Any attempt to cast a shadow of uncertainty about the civilian and humanitarian nature of Qatar’s contributions and their positive impact is baseless,” a Qatari official said in a statement.
Multiple Israeli governments enabled money to go to Gaza for humanitarian reasons, not to strengthen Hamas, an official in Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. He added: “Prime Minister Netanyahu acted to weaken Hamas significantly. He led three powerful military operations against Hamas which killed thousands of terrorists and senior Hamas commanders.”
Hamas has always publicly stated its commitment to eliminating the state of Israel. But each payout was a testament to the Israeli government’s view that Hamas was a low-level nuisance, and even a political asset.
As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.
The official in the prime minister’s office said Mr. Netanyahu never made this statement. But the prime minister would articulate this idea to others over the years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics disparage the payments as “buying quiet.” Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
While Israeli military and intelligence leaders have acknowledged failings leading up to the Hamas attack, Mr. Netanyahu has refused to address such questions. And with a war waging in Gaza, a political reckoning .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html .. for the man who has served as prime minister for 13 of the last 15 years, is, for the moment, on hold.
But Mr. Netanyahu’s critics say that his approach to Hamas had, at its core, a cynical political agenda: to keep Gaza quiet as a means of staying in office without addressing the threat of Hamas or simmering Palestinian discontent.
“The conception of Netanyahu over a decade and a half was that if we buy quiet and pretend the problem isn’t there, we can wait it out and it will fade away,” said Eyal Hulata, Israel’s national security adviser from July 2021 until the beginning of this year.
Seeking Equilibrium
Mr. Netanyahu and his security aides slowly began reconsidering their strategy toward the Gaza Strip after several bloody and inconclusive military conflicts there against Hamas.
“Everyone was sick and tired of Gaza,” said Zohar Palti, a former director of intelligence for Mossad. “We all said, ‘Let’s forget about Gaza,’ because we knew it was a deadlock.”
After one of the conflicts, in 2014, Mr. Netanyahu charted a new course — emphasizing a strategy of trying to “contain” Hamas while Israel focused on Iran’s nuclear program and its proxy armies like Hezbollah.
This strategy was buttressed by repeated intelligence assessments that Hamas was neither interested in nor capable of launching a significant attack inside Israel.
Destruction in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, in 2014. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Qatar, during this period, became a key financier for reconstruction and government operations in Gaza. One of the world’s wealthiest nations, Qatar has long championed the Palestinian cause and, of all its neighbors, has cultivated the closest ties to Hamas. These relationships have proved valuable in recent weeks as Qatari officials have helped negotiate for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Qatar’s work in Gaza during this period was blessed by the Israeli government. And Mr. Netanyahu even lobbied Washington on Qatar’s behalf. In 2017, as Republicans pushed to impose financial sanctions .. https://apnews.com/united-states-congress-136dc3ed50a24990b88c08beb5951703 .. on Qatar over its support for Hamas, he dispatched senior defense officials to Washington. The Israelis told American lawmakers that Qatar had played a positive role in the Gaza Strip, according to three people familiar with the trip.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former head of research for Israel’s military intelligence, said that some officials saw the benefits of maintaining an “equilibrium” in the Gaza Strip. “The logic of Israel was that Hamas should be strong enough to rule Gaza,” he said, “but weak enough to be deterred by Israel.”
The administrations of three American presidents — Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. — broadly supported having the Qataris playing a direct role in funding Gaza operations.
But not everyone was on board.
Avigdor Lieberman, months after becoming defense minister in 2016, wrote a secret memo to Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli military chief of staff. He said Hamas was slowly building its military abilities to attack Israel, and he argued that Israel should strike first.
Avigdor Lieberman, second from left, pictured in 2019, raised concerns that Hamas was slowly building its military abilities to attack Israel. Dan Balilty for The New York Times
Israel’s goal is “to ensure that the next confrontation between Israel and Hamas will be the final showdown,” he wrote in the memo, dated Dec. 21, 2016, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times. A pre-emptive strike, he said, could remove most of the “leadership of the military wing of Hamas.”
Mr. Netanyahu rejected the plan, preferring containment to confrontation.
Hamas as ‘an Asset’
Among the team of Mossad agents that tracked terrorism financing, some came to believe that — even beyond the money from Qatar — Mr. Netanyahu was not very concerned about stopping money going to Hamas.
Uzi Shaya, for example, made several trips to China to try to shut down what Israeli intelligence had assessed was a money-laundering operation for Hamas run through the Bank of China.
After his retirement, he was called to testify against the Bank of China in an American lawsuit brought by the family of a victim of a Hamas terrorist attack.
At first, the head of Mossad encouraged him to testify, saying it could increase financial pressure on Hamas, Mr. Shaya recalled in a recent interview.
Then, the Chinese offered Mr. Netanyahu a state visit. Suddenly, Mr. Shaya recalled, he got different orders from his former bosses: He was not to testify.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “there were other considerations.”
While the reasons for the decision were never confirmed, the change in tack left him suspicious. Especially because politicians at times talked openly about the value of a strong Hamas.
Shlomo Brom, a retired general and former deputy to Israel’s national security adviser, said an empowered Hamas helped Mr. Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state.
Fighters from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, moving toward the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip on Oct. 7. Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“One effective way to prevent a two-state solution is to divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he said in an interview. The division gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse to disengage from peace talks, Mr. Brom said, adding that he can say, “I have no partner.”
Mr. Netanyahu did not articulate this strategy publicly, but some on the Israeli political right had no such hesitation.
Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015 .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB16PMEPuiM&t=10s , the year he was elected to Parliament.
“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”
Suitcases Full of Cash
During a 2018 cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu’s aides presented a new plan: Every month, the Qatari government would make millions of dollars in cash payments directly to people in Gaza as part of a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
Shin Bet, the country’s domestic security service, would monitor the list of recipients to try to ensure that members of Hamas’s military wing would not directly benefit.
Despite those assurances, dissent boiled over. Mr. Lieberman saw the plan as a capitulation and resigned in November 2018. He publicly accused Mr. Netanyahu of “buying short-term peace at the price of serious damage to long-term national security.” In the years that followed, Mr. Lieberman would become one of Mr. Netanyahu’s fiercest critics.
During an interview last month in his office, Mr. Lieberman said the decisions in 2018 directly led to the Oct. 7 attacks.
“For Netanyahu, there is only one thing that is really important: to be in power at any cost,” he said. “To stay in power, he preferred to pay for tranquillity.”
Suitcases filled with cash soon began crossing the border into Gaza.
Each month, Israeli security officials met Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari diplomat, at the border between Israel and Jordan. From there, they drove him to the Kerem Shalom border crossing and into Gaza.
At first, Mr. Emadi brought with him $15 million to distribute, with $100 handed out at designated locations to each family approved by the Israeli government, according to former Israeli and American officials.
Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari diplomat, left, and Hamas’s security chief Tawfiq Abu Naim, second left, during a visit in Gaza City in 2019. Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The funds were intended to pay salaries and other expenses, but one senior Western diplomat who was based in Israel until last year said that Western governments had long assessed that Hamas was skimming from the cash disbursements.
“Money is fungible,” said Chip Usher, a senior Middle East analyst at the C.I.A. until his retirement this year. “Anything that Hamas didn’t have to use out of its own budget freed up money for other things.”
Naftali Bennett, who was Israel’s education minister in 2018 when the payments began and later became the defense minister, was among members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government who criticized the payments. He called them “protection money.”
And yet, when Mr. Bennett began his one-year stint as prime minister in June 2021, he continued the policy. By then, Qatar was spending roughly $30 million a month in Gaza.
Mr. Bennett and his aides, though, decided that the cash disbursements were a monthly embarrassment for his government. During meetings with security officials, Mr. Barnea, the Mossad chief, expressed opposition to continuing the payments — certain that some of the money was being diverted to Hamas’s military activities.
For their part, Qatari officials wanted a more stable, reliable way to get money to Gaza for the long-term.
All sides reached a compromise: United Nations agencies would distribute the Qatari money rather than Mr. Emadi. Some of the money went directly to buy fuel for the power plant in Gaza.
Mr. Hulata, the national security adviser to Mr. Bennett, recalls the tension: Israel was blessing these Qatari payments, even as Mossad intelligence assessments concluded that Qatar was using other channels to secretly finance Hamas’s military arm.
It was hard to stop these military payments, he said, when Israel had become so reliant on Qatar.
Yossi Cohen,who managed the Qatari file for many years as the Mossad chief, came to question Israel’s policy toward the Gaza money. During his final year running the spy service, he believed there was little oversight over where the money was going.
In June 2021, Mr. Cohen gave his first public speech .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUUhc6h6IQ .. after retiring from the spy service. He said that the Qatari money to the Gaza Strip had gotten “out of control.”
Vehicles donated by Qatar to the civil defense and fire brigade crossing through the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Gaza in 2019. Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Maria Abi-Habib and Justin Scheck contributed reporting from London, and Adam Sella from Tel Aviv.
Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A. More about Mark Mazzetti
Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House. More about Ronen Bergman
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