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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Qatar is a tiny nation that juts out of the Arabian Peninsula; it is about twice the scale of Delaware, with simply 300,000 residents.
Regardless of its small dimension, Qatar’s affect spreads far. It is house to the Al Jazeera information community and a sprawling U.S. airbase with U.S. troops. Final yr, it hosted the World Cup soccer video games.
And now it is taking part in a key position greater than 1,000 miles to the west. It’s a shut U.S. ally and the regional energy finest positioned to each affect Hamas and play a mediating position with Israel.
The conflict started Oct. 7, when almost 2,000 Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing round 1,400 folks — principally Israeli civilians, together with girls and youngsters. The militants additionally took an estimated 240 hostages, based on Israeli officers. 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 Israelis have evacuated their properties because of the risk of additional assaults, and Gaza rocket fireplace on Israel continues day by day, although almost all missiles are intercepted.
Israel’s bombardment and assaults on the Gaza Strip have since killed greater than 9,000 folks, 70% of whom are girls and youngsters, based on Palestinian well being officers in Gaza. Almost 200,000 properties have been destroyed and the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million persons are largely displaced, affected by shortages of fresh water, medication, gasoline, meals and electrical energy.
Qatar is just not straight concerned within the battle, however is not any bystander both.
Here’s what to learn about its position in Gaza and past.
Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance through Getty Photos
Qatar’s position behind the scenes
In current weeks, Doha has helped dealer the discharge of 4 Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants. It helped to barter — in coordination with the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Hamas — for foreigners trapped in Gaza to go away by way of the territory’s crossing with Egypt. A number of dozen Palestinians, of greater than 22,000 wounded within the conflict, have additionally been set free to obtain therapy in Egypt this week, based on the Palestinian well being officers.
Qatar has been in a position to play this position as a result of it has hosted Hamas leaders in exile, although it is unclear whether or not it will probably maintain doing so amid rising strain from the U.S., Israel and Europe, which designate Hamas as a terrorist group.
The Biden administration and senior Israeli officers have lauded Qatar’s position in attempting to free greater than 200 hostages, amongst them youngsters and aged, held by militants in Gaza.
Qatar has lengthy hosted or straight talked to teams the U.S. and Europe don’t wish to cope with straight in troublesome negotiations. That has helped Qatar exert affect, play a key position on the worldwide stage and keep relations with a variety of gamers from Washington to Tehran.
Qatar’s cash path within the Gaza Strip
For years, Qatar has helped pay the partial salaries of tens of 1000’s of Palestinian academics, docs and different public servants within the Gaza Strip, which has been below an Israeli blockade, supported by Egypt, since Hamas wrested management of the territory in 2007.
Israeli information stories and analysts say Qatar has despatched greater than $1 billion to Gaza over the previous decade.
Qatar despatched that help by way of gasoline to the Gaza Strip’s Hamas authorities, which in flip offered it and paid partial salaries. Previously, the cash was despatched through suitcases filled with money.
Israel allowed these transfers to Hamas. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say the funds his authorities authorised helped maintain the established order within the Gaza Strip and Hamas from escalating assaults on Israel.
His detractors say the coverage was geared toward weakening the rival Palestinian Authority within the West Financial institution and perpetuating the rift between the 2 Palestinian factions so as to keep away from partaking in an actual peace course of and two-state answer.
Qatar has additionally despatched development supplies into Gaza after infrastructure was destroyed in earlier Israeli wars. It additionally helped pay for United Nations meals rations to Gaza’s poorest households.
Al Jazeera and Qatar’s smooth energy
The Qatar-based information community, primarily funded by the federal government, is without doubt one of the most generally seen Arabic channels on the planet. It is also one of many only a few broadcasting dwell from throughout the Gaza Strip all through the present conflict. It is broadcasting on Arabic and English channels.
The community has lengthy angered Israel and a few Center East governments for its different viewpoints on main Mideast crises, just like the Arab Spring revolts. Critics say the channel promoted Islamist actions. However for tons of of hundreds of thousands of properties with Arabic satellite tv for pc receivers that may watch Al Jazeera, it’s an indispensable supply of reports and knowledge.
Israel’s Cupboard just lately authorised measures that might result in a shutdown of Al Jazeera’s operations within the nation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly requested Qatar’s emir to tone down Al Jazeera’s protection of the carnage in Gaza.
The information community and Qatar have been intertwined for the reason that Arabic channel’s launch in 1996. Qatar’s then-ruler financially backed it when it launched, and it has principally been funded by the Qatari authorities, which derives a lot of its wealth from fuel exports. Its chairman is a member of Qatar’s ruling household.
Al Jazeera says it operates independently.
The community’s journalists have been focused or killed whereas protecting the Israeli-Palestinian battle. Final yr, Shireen Abu Akleh, a longtime Palestinian American reporter and family identify within the Center East, was killed whereas sporting a clearly marked “press” vest within the West Financial institution. Israel and the U.S. say an Israeli soldier was almost definitely chargeable for killing her.
In current weeks, dozens of relations of Al Jazeera’s workers in Gaza have been killed within the Israel-Hamas conflict, together with the spouse, son, daughter and grandchild of Gaza correspondent Wael Dahdouh.
Ashraf Amra/Anadolu through Getty Photos
Qatar retains ties with the U.S. — and its rivals
Qatar hosts 1000’s of U.S. troops on the Al Udeid Airbase, which additionally serves because the regional headquarters for U.S. Central Command. Doha is paying for an growth of that airbase, which the U.S. and others have used to launch airstrikes in opposition to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Qatar was instrumental in evacuating folks from Afghanistan two years in the past, throughout a chaotic and hurried U.S. evacuation from the nation after it was taken over by the Taliban. Qatar has hosted U.S.-Taliban peace talks and different conferences, and continues to be house to members of the Taliban — and to Afghanistan-focused diplomats who withdrew from Kabul in 2021.
Doha has helped free Western hostages held by extremist teams in Syria, and just lately negotiated a high-profile prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran.
The nation maintains shut ties with Iran, with which it shares an underwater fuel subject within the Persian Gulf. Iran rushed to its help when a number of Arab states lower ties with Qatar for a number of years over its insurance policies within the area.
President Biden designated Qatar as a serious non-NATO ally, elevating the safety partnership much more. Late final yr, his administration described Qatar as one of many United States’ “closest navy companions within the area” and mentioned Qatar’s efforts in Gaza had helped to stabilize the territory.
In the meantime, Qatar can also be house to senior Hamas leaders in exile, equivalent to Khalid Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. It is unclear exactly how a lot Hamas leaders overseas knew in regards to the Oct. 7 shock assault on Israel. They’ve come below scrutiny for his or her upscale life overseas as Gazans endure at house.
Jacquelyn Martin/POOL/AFP through Getty Photos
Qatar was one of many first Gulf Arab states to ascertain ties with Israel
Qatar, like a number of different Arab states, has not publicly condemned the Hamas assaults on Israel. And like different Arab states and Iran, it has blamed Israeli insurance policies for the escalation in violence, pointing to the occupation within the West Financial institution, lethal raids into Palestinian cities there and permitting extra Israeli hardliners into the delicate Al Aqsa Mosque compound, recognized to Jews because the Temple Mount.
Nonetheless, Qatar was one of many first Gulf Arab states to ascertain official commerce ties with Israel within the Nineties. However Israel’s workplace in Doha was completely shuttered after Israel’s conflict in Gaza in 2009, and now there are not any official ties between Israel and Qatar.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani mentioned “sufficient is sufficient” final week in a speech to his nation’s consultative Shura Council, describing Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip as “barbaric.”
Regardless of this sharp rhetoric, Israel’s Mossad intelligence chief was just lately in Qatar to debate the discharge of hostages held in Gaza.
NPR’s Daniel Estrin contributed to this story from Tel Aviv.
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