ISTANBUL

Qatar’s prime minister on Sunday rejected accusations that Doha finances Hamas, saying that his country will not pay for the destruction caused by Israeli attacks.

Speaking during a newsmaker interview with US commentator Tucker Carlson at the Doha Forum 2025, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Qatar’s engagement with Hamas began more than a decade ago at Washington’s request to facilitate mediation and ceasefire channels.

“The starting of the relationship with Hamas… was started back more than 10 years… at the request of the United States,” he said. The group’s office in Doha, he added, “was used only for the communication and to facilitate ceasefire, facilitating aid to Gaza.”

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also a foreign minister, said claims that Qatar bankrolls Hamas are unfounded and ignore the multilayered oversight structure that governed aid transfers.

“Today, when they are claiming that this is the financing of Qatar to Hamas, it has no basis,” he said. “All our aid… went to Gaza, went to the people, and was under a very transparent process that the United States is fully aware about.”

He said successive Israeli governments and their security institutions approved and coordinated the delivery of aid to Gaza.

The minister said political attacks targeting Qatar misrepresent its role as a mediator seeking to ease humanitarian suffering and broker ceasefires.

“We have seen a lot of efforts ongoing for years now based on disinformation and spreading lies and false information about Qatar in order to hurt the relationship between Qatar and the United States.”

He stressed that Qatar will continue humanitarian support for Palestinians but will not pay to rebuild the destruction caused by Israeli military operations.

“We will continue supporting the Palestinian people. We will do whatever to alleviate their suffering, but we are not the ones who are going to write the check to rebuild what others destroy,” he said.

“That's basically our position. But also, we will not let the Palestinian people drive; they are not helped, or they are not funded,” he added.

A ceasefire, mediated by Türkiye, Egypt, and Qatar, and backed by the US, took effect on Oct. 10, halting a two-year Israeli war that has killed more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 171,000 others since October 2023.