Documents found in Gaza show a Hamas-Qatar plot to derail U.S. diplomacy, sabotage Trump-brokered plan for two-state solution.

By World Israel News Staff

Senior Hamas officials conspired with the Qatari government to sabotage President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

The Trump proposal would have secured a long-term truce between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as ushered in normalization between Israel and other Arab countries.

Hamas documents discovered by IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip revealed that Qatari officials met with Hamas representatives in June 2019, with the discussions in the “emergency” sessions focused on ensuring that Trump’s plan would not come to fruition, Hebrew-language outlet Channel 12 reported.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani spoke with Hamas leaders in Doha, including Hamas politburo head Khaled Mashaal.

After Al Thani expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia would agree to normalize relations with Israel, Mashaal replied that “we need to cooperate in order to resist the ‘Deal of the Century and thwart it.”

The Deal of the Century, which was formally titled “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People,” included a framework for a two-state solution.

The deal would have granted the Palestinians some 70 percent of the territory of Judea and Samaria, excluding Jewish communities in the region, along with portions of the Negev desert.

The proposal also included generous financial support from the U.S., via billions of dollars in investment in a newly-founded independent Palestinian state.

In December 2019, then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised Al Thani for Qatar’s ongoing funding for the terror group.

“The Qatari grants are Hamas’s main artery,” Haniyeh reportedly told the Qatari leader.

Since the outbreak of the October 7th war, Qatar has claimed to be a neutral mediator in ongoing discussions aimed at securing a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

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In a fiery statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu accuses Qatar of hypocrisy and “double talk” after the country condemned Israel for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Qatar, one of the main negotiators between the Jewish state and the Hamas terror group, for accusing Israel of genocide and war crimes at a recent international tribunal.

“Israel is fighting a just war with just means. After the October 7 atrocities, Prime Minister Netanyahu defined the War of Redemption as a war between civilization and barbarism,” Netanyahu wrote on his official X account on Saturday.

“The time has come for Qatar to stop playing both sides with its double talk and decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas barbarism. Israel will win this just war with just means,” Netanyahu added.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansar fired back after Netanyahu’s tweet, calling the statement “inflammatory” and morally irresponsible.

“Portraying the ongoing aggression against Gaza as a defense of ‘civilization’ echoes the rhetoric of regimes throughout history that have used false narratives to justify crimes against innocent civilians,” al-Ansari said.

He added that Israel’s military offensive against the Hamas terror group constitutes “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of modern times.”

Concluding his statement, al-Ansari insisted that Qatar continues to serve as a “credible and impartial mediator.”

Netanyahu’s remarks came after a senior Qatari official accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide of war against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza,” during an international tribunal focusing on the ongoing blockade of Hamas in the Strip.

Qatari diplomat Mutlaq Al-Qahtani told the International Court of Justice last Thursday that “Israel systematically uses starvation in its war, which is in violation of international norms and laws and is considered a war crime, especially against children.”

Qatar, which has long provided a safe haven for senior Hamas terrorists, has publicly maintained that it is a neutral party in the Israeli-Arab conflict, assuming an important role in negotiating previous ceasefires between Israel and Hamas.

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Top security agencies in Israel view Qatari-controlled network as a threat to ongoing war against Hamas.

By World Israel News Staff

The Mossad intelligence agency is reportedly pushing Israeli authorities to shutter the local branch of Qatari-controlled news station Al Jazeera, Hebrew-language media reported.

According to Kan News, the Mossad is concerned about Al Jazeera’s reporters – who frequently film sensitive military locations – as a source of potential harm to soldiers and the efficacy of the ongoing war against Hamas.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency, the IDF Chief of Staff, and the National Security Council all back the decision to ban the network’s presence on the ground in Israel.

Al Jazeera, which promotes a pro-Palestinian narrative in line with the Qatari government’s stances, was recently criticized by the IDF spokesman for presenting a Hamas propaganda video as fact.

The network recently aired a misleading clip pushed by Hamas without investigating the context or authenticity of the media, which claimed that the terror group had released a mother and child kidnapped from a Kibbutz to the Strip.

In reality, the video was taken the day of Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israel, and depicts the terrorists apparently choosing not to transport the kidnapped family deep into the Strip, presumably due to logistical challenges.

Al Jazeera falsely presented the video as though it depicted the release of the mother and child as a humanitarian gesture, days after being kidnapped.

The timing of the report was also notable, as it came shortly after numerous international powers criticized the terror group for taking mothers and children hostage.

“After the whole world saw its ugly and true face as a barbaric organization that executed hundreds of innocent children and women in a terrorist attack and a hideous massacre, Hamas is trying to change the truth through…publishing a propaganda video via [Al Jazeera] and its media outlets,” wrote IDF Arabic-language spokesman Avichai Adaree.

“Hamas is worse than ISIS and we will continue to deal them strong blows.”

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Source claims arrangement has Israel’s blessing.

By Baruch Yedid, TPS

A very senior figure in the Hamas leadership told TPS on Tuesday that “Hamas accepts the Egyptian-Qatari proposal to import Qatari-funded fuel from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.”

The source said that Hamas will sell the fuel to local companies in Gaza, and the sum of about $10 million collected in the sales will be transferred as salaries to 28,000 Hamas officials, employees of its various civilian mechanisms in the Strip.

Hamas has full control of Gaza.

In this way, he said, the issue of the Qatari grant is expected to be resolved. Israel has opposed the direct transfer of Qatari funds to Hamas in Gaza.

The source, formerly one of the leaders of Hamas’ military wing and now a member of the leadership institutions abroad, said that it was Hamas that offered this option to the Egyptians and the Qataris several months ago, and that Israel prevented the settlement. Now, he said, Israel will also allow the transfer of fuel from Egypt with Qatari funding to Hamas, which it will sell and use the money from the sales to pay the wages of its people in the Gaza Strip.

Qatari Ambassador Muhammad Amadi is expected to arrive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to meet with Hamas leaders and discuss with them how to transfer fuel.

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If Israel does not fulfill these demands, the relative quiet along Israel’s southern border will end, Hamas threatened.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Gaza-based terror group Hamas is demanding that Israel fulfill a number of conditions, including transferring some $8 million in aid money, by Tuesday, or face actions that could dismantle the current Israeli government, Palestinian daily Al-Ayan reported.

Hamas is also demanding the full release of Qatari funding for Gaza, an end to the restrictions which prevent Gazans from approaching the border fence with Israel, easier movement for Gazans that wish to travel to Jordan, and family reunification permits for some 19,000 Gazans married to Israeli citizens, which would normalize their status in the Jewish State.

If Israel does not fulfill these demands, the relative quiet along Israel’s southern border since May 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls clash will come to an end, the group threatened.

The warning that Hamas has the power to create a conflict with the potential to upend Israel’s current ruling coalition appears to be a reference to the unstable nature of the government, which is comprised of parties spanning from the left to right ends of the political spectrum.

Islamist party Ra’am stopped negotiations around joining the Israeli government in May 2021 when the IDF was engaged bombing Hamas targets in the Strip.

On Monday, MK Michal Rozin from the left-wing Meretz party threatened to topple the government if Prime Minister Naftali Bennett officially recognizes Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

“If Gantz gives in the settler pressure and stops the recognition of a small Palestinian village, while at the same time the government advances building projects in Jerusalem after 30 years, that is a violation of the [coalition] agreement that no steps should be taken that are not in the consensus,” she tweeted.

“We, the parties which do not believe in the annexation of territories will declare clearly that this government has no mandate to do this.”

News agency JDN suggested that Hamas is happy with the Bennett government, which has allowed the entry of building materials into the Strip along with other concessions, and does not actually want the current government to fall.

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The possibility of returning Israeli captives held by Hamas could explain Israel’s lack of response to Monday’s rocket attack.

By Tobias Siegal, World Israel News

A potential breakthrough in recent negotiations with Hamas may see the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages being held by the Gaza-based terror group.

On Tuesday, a source close to Hamas cited by Israeli media said that Qatari aid money, intended for some 100,000 families in Gaza, will be transferred in the coming days via the United Nations.

Moreover, the agreed compromise may include the release of one or more Israelis held by Hamas in Gaza, according to N12.

This possibility could explain Israel’s lack of response to Monday’s rocket attack from Gaza, reportedly perpetrated by Islamic Jihad members who were later arrested by Hamas.

Hamas does not seem to be interested in an escalation. Israel is not interested in one either. And while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz are very much aware of the public criticism they may face, the potential value of reaching a breakthrough on the issue of Israeli captives exceeds the dangerous implications of Israel’s failed response.

Amid these developments, Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel arrived in Israel on Wednesday and met with Bennett and Gantz.

While touring southern Israel on Tuesday, Gantz said that Israel’s “only interest in Gaza is maintaining peace and returning our boys home,” possibly as a reference to the potential breakthrough.

IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin went missing during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza and were later confirmed to be dead. Their bodies were never returned.

Two Israeli citizens are also believed to be held by Hamas: Avera Mengistu, a disabled resident of Ashkelon who crossed the border into the Gaza Strip on September 7, 2014 and was not seen since, and Hisham al-Sayyed, a young Bedouin suffering from schizophrenia who served in the IDF for several months before being discharged and crossed the border into Gaza in April 2015.

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Israel has refused to allow the entry of Qatari cash into Gaza since Operation Guardian of the Walls, stating that unsupervised money will reach Hamas and be used for terrorist activities.

By Tobias Siegal, World Israel News

Despite the outline agreed upon by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Qatar over allowing Qatari aid to be processed by PA banks and funnelled toward rebuilding the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian banking system is raising concerns and delaying the transfer of funds, Israeli media reported on Thursday.

The main concern being voiced by Palestinian officials regards potential lawsuits filed against Palestinian banks in case the Qatari money reaches Hamas and is used to promote or carry out terrorist activities by the group.

Israel has refused to allow the entry of Qatari cash into Gaza since Operation Guardian of the Walls, stating that unsupervised money will reach Hamas and be used for terrorist activities.

Therefore, Israel and Ramallah had reached a new outline that would see the money processed and monitored by PA-operated banks in Gaza and divided among 100,000 struggling families (100$ for each family and a total of 10 million dollars every month), without ever reaching Hamas.

Under this new agreement, the UN would be responsible for monitoring the process of transferring the money to struggling households in Gaza.

However, with the funds expected to be sent by Qatar as soon as next week, PA banks in Gaza might delay their arrival.

The Palestinian banking system is well aware that Israel will closely monitor the situation, raising concerns of lawsuits being directed toward the banks if money does end up reaching Hamas, a very tangible possibility, as indicated by a senior Hamas leader earlier this week.

On Wednesday, a TPS report stated that sources in the Gaza Strip have emphasized that Hamas would not agree to waive the payment of wages to its 27,000 civilian administration employees in Gaza, quoting a member of the Hamas leadership saying that “any agreement to transfer funds from Qatar to the Gaza Strip will not take place without the consent of Hamas and we will not give up the payment of salaries to government officials in the Gaza Strip.”

This may be problematic for the PA, which has insisted that the payment of wages to Hamas operatives not be included in the outline.

The same official added that “the Palestinian banks are nothing but a means and we will control the routing of funds.”

Such remarks may explain the Palestinian banks’ latency in moving forward with the agreed outline, fearing legal repercussions posed by Israel over their potential involvement in funding terrorism.

Meanwhile, Hamas has demanded to be more involved in the process and to receive the funds directly, going as far as threatening a new escalation with Israel if funds are not transferred soon.

Baruch Yedid/TPS contributed to this report.

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Either Qatari aid is allowed to flow again or incendiary attacks will increase, the terrorist organization warns.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Hamas is threatening to ratchet up the rate of airborne arson attacks on Israel if it does not receive millions of dollars in aid from Qatar soon, Channel 13 reported Sunday.

The message came after three fires broke out in the Eshkol Region of southern Israel Sunday due to incendiary balloons launched from the Gaza Strip landing on dry brush. The fires were extinguished quickly with little damage caused.

Then, in line with the government’s promise to retaliate even for minor attacks, Israel’s air force hit a military camp belonging to Hamas, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories reduced the Gazan fishing zone from 12 to six nautical miles.

The network quoted reports from Lebanon stating that the “Resistance” in Gaza will escalate in the coming days, starting with the dispatching of more and more balloons. Dozens of arson attacks have taken place since early May, which still doesn’t approach the large numbers of launchings in previous years that burned hundreds of acres of crops and woodlands throughout Israel’s south.

No monetary aid has been allowed into the Gaza Strip since Operation Guardian of the Walls in May, when the IDF blasted terrorist infrastructure in the coastal enclave in retaliation for thousands of rockets that Hamas indiscriminately shot into Israel.

Jerusalem has stood firm in its pledge to condition the rebuilding of homes in the Gaza Strip destroyed in the bombing on the return of the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in the 2014 summer war and two Israeli civilians with psychological issues who entered Gaza on their own in 2014 and 2015, respectively. However, essential humanitarian aid resumed flowing into the Strip almost immediately after the May operation was over.

Hamas also threatened escalation last month, albeit of a different kind, if Qatari aid was not allowed to resume. In early June, Hamas sent a message to Israel through the Egyptians saying that if money wasn’t allowed into the Gaza Strip, they would resume sending protestors to the border area.

In 2018 and 2019, the terrorist organization regularly sent demonstrators on Fridays to some five parts of the fence separating the coastal enclave from Israel. The crowds, ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands at a time, burned tire, and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops protecting the border.

While the IDF soldiers used rubber bullets and tear gas as well as other crowd-control means to keep the protestors away, terrorists used the cover of the mayhem to try to infiltrate into Israel to perpetrate attacks. They were invariably caught either before or immediately after crossing the border.

Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to Gaza in recent years, with Israel’s blessing. Although Doha insists that its aid is used solely for humanitarian purposes, Jerusalem knows that a good portion of it was siphoned off by Hamas to expand its missile supply and build its terrorist infrastructure, including the tunnel system under Gaza City that was destroyed in large part by the IAF raids in May.

The Israeli government is determined that this time, there will be strict oversight on all aid sent to Gaza so that it gets to the ordinary people who need it rather than to the terrorist organization that rules them with an iron fist.

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An Israeli team visited Doha and arranged for a $60 million transfer to Hamas by year’s end to buy quiet.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An Israeli delegation met secretly with Qatari officials in Doha in recent days to ensure a steady cash supply to the government in the Gaza Strip, which Israel hopes will buy quiet on its border with the coastal enclave, Channel 13 News reported exclusively Tuesday night.

The visit ended with the Qataris agreeing to drop another $60 million into Hamas’ coffers by year’s end, said reporter Alon Ben David.

“Israel sees Qatar’s agreement to undertake the continuation of aid to the Gaza Strip as a sign of warming of ties between the two countries,” he said.

Israel has no diplomatic relations with Qatar, which is close to Turkey and Iran and supports many Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist Islamic international group that many Arab countries, as well as Israel, have designated as a terror organization. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood.

Led by Saudi Arabia, Arab states such as Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain cut all ties with Qatar three years ago due to Doha’s “embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region,” as the Saudi government said at the time.

Ben David said that this festering issue was in the background of the agreement.

“Qatar believes Israel can help it get reaccepted into the Gulf states that are boycotting it,” he said.

Three of the four Qatari opponents have by now signed diplomatic agreements with Israel. Saudi Arabia is also undoubtedly warming publicly to Israel as it has spoken in favor of the ties and is allowing flights to and from Tel Aviv to Bahrain and the UAE to cross its airspace.

The Qataris, he continued, even threw a sweetener into the deal.

“They are not ruling out the possibility that Qatar will be among the countries that will sign a peace agreement with Israel in the near future,” he said, even though their allies are among Israel’s worst enemies.

Last month, in an interview with Bloomberg, the Qatari deputy foreign minister ruled out normalizing ties with Israel until a solution is found for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Qatar, which is the richest country in the world per capita, has donated well over a billion dollars to Hamas in the last decade, but this year may be a record. The newly announced $60 million is in addition to the $50 million Doha reportedly gave Hamas in June with Israel’s blessing, essentially to bribe the terror organization to stop launching its latest wave of arson and explosive balloons over the border.

Since it also transferred $30 million a month to Hamas from January until August, this would bring Doha’s support for Gaza in 2020 to some $350 million – all with Israel’s active collaboration.

Channel 12 also reported on October 11 that Qatar, Israel and Hamas were developing an agreement by which Qatar would funnel $100 million to Hamas in exchange for a ceasefire of at least six months’ duration. The network said that the Israeli side was represented by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, and Mossad head Yossi Cohen. The two “have a direct line to senior officials in Qatar,” said the report.

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New demands include supplying ventilators and corona test kits, following a re-emergence of the pandemic in Gaza.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A grenade attached to a large balloon sent from the Gaza Strip landed Thursday morning near the greenhouses of Moshav Ohad in the Eshkol region and was safely defused by a sapper.

The airborne attack was one of hundreds of arson and explosive balloon launches that have occurred over the last three weeks, as Hamas attempts again to force Israel to make concessions in return for quiet.

Qatar’s official envoy to the Gaza Strip, Dr. Mohammed al-Emadi, is currently in the coastal enclave to mediate the negotiations. At least one reason Doha is involved is that one of Hamas’ key demands is additional financial aid from Qatar, which Jerusalem would have to allow.

A new demand was added Wednesday to the list al-Emadi is discussing with Israel. Hamas wants Israel to transfer COVID-19 testing kits and ventilators, as it finds itself fighting a recurrence of the coronavirus pandemic.

The arson balloons have caused about 500 fires so far in Israel’s southern region – an average of 25 a day. To cut down the response time and subsequent damage caused by the blazes, the complement of regular fire-fighting crews has been greatly augmented.

IDF soldiers, employees of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, the organization that planted much of the forestland now being destroyed, and inspectors of the Nature and Parks Authority have joined the fight, racing from one blaze to the next.

“If you get there quickly, you can also put it out with a pail of water or a blower,” Ezra Sasson, the Parks Authority’s director of the northern Negev region, said to an Israel Hayom reporter who was observing the fire-fighting work Wednesday. “I have a blower, and in such vegetation, if it’s not trees, a blower is enough.”

The fires have caused dozens of hectares to go up in smoke, and the number will reach triple digits soon if an agreement isn’t reached with Hamas. But the tactic is not a game-changer, Sasson said in the report.

“By and large I can say that the balloons won’t defeat us. It’s true, people are making a big fuss over it, but at the end we have an excellent solution. Thirty fires a day, and the response comes in zero time.”

It is not a reason to go into Gaza, he said in response to a question on the subject.

“I prefer to put out fires and not that we enter Gaza and soldiers get hurt,” he said.

It does make him “sad” to see beautiful nature sites turned black with ash, and he noted that the animals who live in the region are certainly suffering.

“All wildlife like turtles, these fires just consume them,” he said.

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Hamas says that restored calm on the border is dependent in part on increased aid from Qatar.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Qatar’s official envoy to the Gaza Strip, Dr. Mohammed al-Emadi, is expected to arrive in the coastal enclave Tuesday to discuss what is needed so that another “arrangement” can be made between Israel  and Hamas.

London-based paper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Monday that Israel’s head of the Southern Command Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi landed in the Qatari capital, where he will meet with overseas leaders of the terrorist organization to negotiate for quiet. Halevi was reportedly accompanied by senior security officials in the Mossad, Shabak and National Security Council.

For the past two weeks, IDF airstrikes have hit Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for hundreds of fires set off by Hamas terrorists launching arson and explosive balloons and rockets at the southern part of the Jewish state. So far, some 280 dunam (69 acres) of mainly brushland has gone up in flames, and a few people have been injured while running to shelters during the rocket attacks.

One of Hamas’ key demands for ceasing its attacks is that Israel allow Qatar to increase the amount of aid it has sent to Gaza for the last two years. Hamas reportedly wants $40 million a month in cash instead of the $30 million it has received since January, for “a pre-determined long-term period of time.”

The money is ostensibly for needy Gaza residents, and Hamas has publicized pictures of happy Gazans waving hundred-dollar bills they received in aid from Doha. In a Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic studies paper published in February, however, Prof. Hillel Frisch wrote that the terrorist organization is getting the lion’s share of the funds.

“At a recent ‘meet the press’ event run by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Development and Social Affairs, a senior official in the ministry, Muhammad Hamada, reported that 268 million shekels’ worth of Qatari money has been disbursed in Gaza so far,” Frisch wrote. Hamada then went on to list “in considerable detail how the money was spent.” This included such items as 100,000 ordinary citizens receiving an average of NIS500 – while 156 families of ‘martyrs’ were paid over NIS7,000 and 257 government officials got just under NIS7,000.

Upon doing all the math, Frisch found that it still added up to just under NIS60 million. This meant, he wrote, that “nearly 80% is unaccounted for.” He posited that it has gone to strengthen Hamas’ capabilities against Israel, as the money could be spent on building more terror tunnels and improving its rocket arsenal.

In an analysis of the Qatari financial pipeline earlier this month in Israel Hayom, Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security research fellow Udi Levi also made the point that Jerusalem is enabling future terror attacks while buying temporary quiet on its border.

Allowing the aid to reach Hamas, he wrote, is a policy that flatly contradicts Israel’s years-long effort to break the basis of terrorists’ ability to keep fighting Israel.

“Israel was one of the first countries in the world to understand that denying sources of finance to terrorist organizations is a key tool in the war on terror,” he wrote, and it “became a policy mainstay” ever since the days of [former] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Its successes included its advocacy for “the unprecedented economic campaign against Iran and its nuclear endeavors…. the closing of dozens of charitable association worldwide … the shutting down of financial channels and a long list of clandestine operations” against funding sources for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

Moreover, Levi argued, paying bribes in return for quiet does not work in the long run. He cited several examples, including Israel itself, which basically helped establish the Islamist Hamas to create a problem for the Arab nationalist PLO in the 1980s.

“Disastrous results” such as the founding of Al Qaeda and ISIS, he wrote, were also rooted in 40 years of Saudi financing of “the infrastructures of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Sunni terrorist organizations around the world” in order to spread the kingdom’s version of Islam and insure itself against internal troubles.

Qatar “is neck-deep in financing most Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide,” he wrote, yet “unlike Iran, Qatar has for some reason been granted international immunity.”

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Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on November 5, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – November 5, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.

Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on May 12, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – May 12, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.

Qatar’s foreign ministry announced it will transfer half a billion dollars to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria.

By David Isaac, World Israel News 

Qatar will send $480 million in support of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, the country’s foreign ministry announced in a statement on Monday.

According to Qatar, $300 million will go to the Palestinians in the forms of grants and loans for health and education. The remaining $180 million will be put toward urgent humanitarian needs, supporting U.N. efforts and providing electricity to areas that need it.

The money comes after a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas. The terror group, together with the smaller Iran-sponsored Islamic Jihad, fired an estimated 600-700 rockets into Israel, killing four and wounding 145. It is reportedly the worst round of fighting between the two since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.

According to reports, the transfer of Qatari money was part of the agreement reached between Israel and Hamas, which included other conditions, such as expanding Gaza’s fishing area and the opening of the border crossings.

However, Israel denies that any conditions were agreed upon.

One Israeli official told Ynet news, “No conditions were set between the sides and there’s no promise that hostilities won’t be renewed in a short time. We hope that the great damage to the organization [Hamas] in the last two days will bring them to understand that it’s not worthwhile to open a campaign against us. But there’s no understanding, just a slide into a ceasefire. Money from Qatar will continue to pass.”

Qatar has transferred over $1.1 billion between 2012 and 2018 to the terror group Hamas. It supplied $200 million in aid just in 2018.

Qatar also gave $50 million to UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for the Palestinian refugees, propping up the organization after the U.S. pulled its funding on August 31, 2018.

“The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” a State Department spokesman said at the time.

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Hamas official indicates that Israel demanded a ban on Gaza border marches as well as a new system of bank payments instead of cash.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News

Israel confirmed that it approved the transfer of a third payment of $15 million in Qatari funds into the Gaza Strip after an almost two-week delay, but Hamas has refused to accept the money. Israel had postponed the transfer due to escalating attacks from Gaza.

The Israeli approval reportedly came after the security establishment told the political echelon that Hamas was involved in the most recent border violence and that resuming the transfer of the Qatari payments would contribute to a calmer situation.

However, citing conditions placed by Israel, Hamas refused to accept the funds from a Qatari emissary and insisted that “Gaza will not be part of blackmail or a theater for Israeli election festivals.”

“The preconditions that were given by Israel for securing the Qatari payments were unacceptable. We consider this as a breach of the ceasefire agreement and Israel will bear the responsibility for this,” stated Khalil al-Haya, Hamas deputy leader in Gaza, at a news conference.

The Qatari envoy, Mohammad Al-Emadi, met with Hamas officials in the Strip, according to Ma’an, a Palestinian news agency. Al-Haya reportedly told Al-Emadi that Gaza “will not become a pawn in the upcoming Israeli election and that Hamas is refusing to accept the funds because of the conditions set by Israel.

“We affirm that the March of Return will continue until the Palestinian national rights are achieved,” al-Haya said, indicating that the Israeli conditions included reining in the weekly Friday border protests.

Shortly after the Hamas declaration, the Qatari emissary was reported to be leaving Gaza.

Hamas earlier said it was refusing to accept the payments, expressing to the Qatari emir its “displeasure” at Israel’s failure to deliver the payments on time.

Reports also said that Hamas refused the funds because it objected to the new system of bank payments instead of cash.

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