Netanyahu arranged for $30m via Qatari envoy Mohammed al-Emadi to be driven into Gaza to give to Hamas
every month for two years 2018-20. But why??
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Lets spring open the suitcase (above) and consider the most revealing contradiction in Netanyahu's Gaza policy may be this: his government proved more willing to facilitate funding for Hamas - a designated terrorist organization - than to work constructively with the Palestinian Authority, the very body created under the Oslo Accords to serve as a partner for peace.
The civil service in Gaza still, by and large, consists of employees loyal to the former Palestinian Authority (PA) government, who now live under Hamas rule. These workers long depended on salaries sent from the PA in the West Bank - though the PA was under no binding obligation to continue paying them.
From 2017 onward, Mahmoud Abbas and the PA began cutting those wages as a strategy to weaken Hamas politically and militarily. The aim was twofold: either force Hamas to divert scarce resources into paying civil servants (at the expense of arms and tunnel-building), or else stir public unrest that might undermine Hamas’s grip on Gaza.
This created a dangerous vacuum. To prevent total economic collapse - and fearing that the PA might use the crisis to claw its way back into Gaza (an outcome that could revive international pressure for Palestinian unity and statehood) - Netanyahu stepped in. Realising it would be politically untenable to finance Hamas directly, his government instead approved Qatari cash transfers as a workaround. Suitcases of Qatari money, entering Gaza with Israel’s blessing, helped sustain Hamas’s governance indirectly, while insulating Israel from direct responsibility.
This arrangement was particularly murky. Delivering millions of dollars in untraceable cash, via suitcases, to a group internationally recognised as a terrorist organisation created an obvious contradiction. Hamas openly neglected to pay much of Gaza’s civil service or invest in public infrastructure, choosing instead to channel resources into its military wing and tunnel network. Yet the Netanyahu policy was sold publicly under the banner of “Cash for Calm” or “Cash for Peace” - as though it were a stabilising humanitarian measure. In reality, it blurred the line between humanitarian relief and direct financing of Hamas, leaving both Israel and Qatar open to accusations of propping up an armed faction while ordinary Gazans continued to live amid failing services and collapsing infrastructure. Israel’s choice to allow the funds to enter as cash rather than through transparent banking channels only deepened the ambiguity, ensuring there was no clear record of where the money ultimately went - and making it easier to maintain plausible deniability over the policy’s real consequences.
"Retired Israeli general Shlomo Brom described the logic of Netanyahu’s position: “One effective way to prevent a two-state solution is to divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” If the extremist Hamas ruled Gaza, then the Palestinian Authority—a compromised comprador government with a tenuous hold on the West Bank—would be further weakened. This, according to Brom, would allow Netanyahu to say, “I have no partner." https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolstered-hamas/
When Israel bombards Gaza in its war with Hamas, much of the destruction falls not on Hamas’s own installations - since Hamas as Netanyahu keenly knows invests diddly-sqaut on civilian institutions -
but on the PA-built infrastructure that still runs the Strip: schools, ministries, hospitals, and utilities. Publicly, however, much of this is spun as “Hamas infrastructure,” as though every functioning institution in Gaza were a militant asset. In reality, what is being destroyed are the very institutions the Palestinian Authority established and maintained - the tangible foundations of governance, not just a symbolic claim to authority. In effect, Israel’s campaigns erode the PA’s legacy and infrastructure in Gaza, even as Netanyahu’s government propped up Hamas financially. To a large degree Israel's the war against Hamas and Palestinian civilians has also functioned as a proxy war against the Palestinian Authority and the legitimacy of Palestinian statehood.
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TL;DR
A
Times of Israel piece one of many news outlets critiquing this Israeli policy :
For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
Other sources:
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-hamas.html
The Intercept
"Netanyahu Boasted of Keeping Hamas Strong in Gaza to Block Palestinian State" https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/israel-netanyahu-hamas-palestinian-state/
Havard University : Primary Study on Civilian Infrastructure Damage, Published in Conflict and Health (April 2, 2024) https://conflictandheealthjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13031-024-00580-x
Haaretz
"Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can't Be Managed By Bibi's Makeshift Arrangements" https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...ngements/0000018b-0e3e-d639-a1cb-ee3e64480000
