DOHA — Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani said Sunday that his country will not foot the bill for rebuilding Gaza, despite speculation that it would be the main backer of reconstruction. “We are not the ones who are going to write the check to rebuild what others destroyed,” Al Thani said during an onstage interview at the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference. “When you are talking about Gaza,” he went on, “Israel flattened this land.”
He indicated that Qatar will limit its funding to humanitarian aid, declaring that it will continue supporting the Palestinian people and do what it can to alleviate their suffering. “Our payments will only go to help the Palestinian people if we see that the help coming to them is insufficient,” Al Thani said, without elaborating.
He also listed a succession of Israeli prime ministers and security agencies that, he said, endorsed Qatar’s sending funds into Gaza in the years before the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023: “[Prime Ministers] Netanyahu, Bennett, we have dealt with all the agencies, Lapid was the prime minister at a certain point of time, Mossad, Shin Bet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs… and the Defense [Ministry], all of them were involved.” (Read More)
