IDF finds evidence of Hamas-Qatari plot to sabotage Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ peace plan

Documents found by the IDF in Gaza reportedly show Qatar sent million of dollars to Hamas and opposed Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ peace plan.

Emir of Qatar Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani opposed Donald Trump’s first administration peace plan. Picture: AP

Documents found by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza reportedly show Qatari officials and leaders of Hamas plotting to scuttle President Trump’s “deal of the century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his first administration.

The documents apparently show leaders of Qatar and the terror group discussing ways to thwart the peace plan as well as efforts to have Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, normalise relations with Israel, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

The documents cite an emergency meeting in June 2019 between Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Hamas leaders including Khaled Mashal, former chair of the Hamas Political Bureau.

At the meeting, which came a year before the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to normalise relations with Israel in August 2020, Al Thani told the Hamas leaders that Oman was signalling an openness to forging ties with Jerusalem.

“With respect to Palestine – Oman is on one side and we are on the other side,” he reportedly told them during the emergency meeting.

Former Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar plotted with Qatar to scuttle Donald Trump’s peace plan. Picture: AFP

In response, Mashal told the emir: “We must work together to oppose the Deal of the Century and eliminate it.”

Channel 12 reports the documents also show cash payments from Qatar to Hamas were so large that in December 2019 then-Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh told Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani that the Gulf state’s cash to Gaza was “Hamas’s main artery”.

In May 2021, immediately after the conclusion of an 11-day mini war between Israel and Hamas, Haniyeh told the terror group’s then Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar that Qatari emir Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani had privately “agreed on discreet financial support” for the group’s “resistance” efforts, according to the report.

Haniyeh, head of the Hamas Political Bureau, was assassinated last year in Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

His remains were taken to Qatar, where they were buried in Lusail, the country’s second-largest city.

Sinwar was killed in October 2024 during fighting by the IDF.

Channel 12 also reports the documents include correspondence showing Hamas worked to sideline Egypt’s diplomatic efforts in Gaza, and replace it with Qatar.

“The Egyptians were attempting to restrain the escalation and we caused them to leave the picture with empty hands,” said Yahya Sinwar in May 2021, when he was the leader of Hamas in Gaza. “In their place, the Qataris came, and we gave them an opportunity to dictate the fruits of diplomacy.”

The documents also reportedly reveal messages from Mashal thanking the Qataris for sending the Hamas leadership to Iran for the funeral of terrorist Qasem Soleimani, on January 7, 2020.

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3.

“Thank you to Qatari brothers who agreed to fly us,” reads the note from Haniyeh to the Qatari leadership.

In a press release, the Qatari government called the documents “fabricated”.

They claimed they had been circulated in the Israeli media “in an attempt to sow tension and division between Qatar and the United States at a crucial stage in our efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas”.

The country’s International Media Office said in a June 10 press release the tactic had previously been used “by those who want diplomacy to fail”.

The White House did not return an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Hamas refused comment.

In January 2020, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a deal for a two-state peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians.

The plan, “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People,” called for the creation of a State of Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem.

As part of the deal, Sinwar was offered $10 billion and for Gaza to be recognised as Palestine and Hamas-led in exchange for “forgetting about” the West Bank and other territory. Sinwar rejected the offer, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The deal ceded major settlements in the West Bank to Israeli sovereignty and called for a four-year freeze on new Israeli settlement construction.

Qatar has had a long association with Hamas, which was designated a terror group by the US in 1997. Qatar’s current defence minister, Sa’oud Aal Thani, posted tweets in 2014 backing the group during a round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the summer of 2014.

“We are all Hamas,” he posted, according to the MEMRI.

A spokesman for the IDF declined to say when the trove of documents was found in Gaza.

The New York Post