Elbit, Rafael, Israel Aerospace Industries all said to have received authorization from Defense Ministry and IDF before October 7 to sell weapons and cybertechnology to Hamas-backing Gulf state
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved multimillion-dollar defense deals between Israel’s top defense companies and Qatar, according to a Tuesday report from the Walla news outlet. Netanyahu denied the report hours later as “fake news.”
The unsourced report came days after the publication of documents apparently seized by Israel in Gaza that reportedly show Qatar’s intense collaboration with the Palestinian terror group Hamas over the course of several years.
It was the latest revelation of apparent top-tier cooperation between Israel and Qatar, which does not have diplomatic ties with Israel and has funded Hamas as well as hosting its political leaders.
Elbit, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries all reportedly received authorization for major deals with the wealthy Gulf country before the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of southern Israel.
Sales included weapons, ammunition, cyber technology, and advanced weapons, the report said.
The deals were said to have been given the green light by Netanyahu, the Defense Ministry, and the IDF.
Walla did not specify exactly what items were included in the deals.
The Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday night called the report “totally fake news.”
“The Prime Minister has not instructed the Defense Ministry to sign any export licenses for Qatar,” the PMO told The Times of Israel.
“Only deals above a certain sum reach the Ministers Committee for Exports, chaired by the Prime Minister – and concerning Qatar there was no such deal,” said the PMO.
“In accordance with the export supervision law, the Prime Minister does not sign export licenses, and the authorized officials who may approve export and marketing licenses are the Director General of the Defense Ministry and the head of DECA.”
“Elbit Systems’ activity in the international market is subject to the guidelines and restrictions of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and accordingly, the company operates under these guidelines,” Elbit said.
Earlier this week, Channel 12 news reported that documents taken from Gaza during the war revealed that in May 2021, immediately after the conclusion of an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, then-Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh told the terror group’s leader in Gaza 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.
In addition to Doha’s cash, Qatari intelligence officials reportedly met with a Hamas representative at one point — the report did not provide a date — to discuss supervising special training units for Hamas fighters on military bases in Qatar and Turkey, and for the integration of Syrian Palestinians who fled to Lebanon amid the Syrian civil war into Hamas’s Lebanese battalions.
According to Channel 12 news, the documents showed that the payments, which were transferred with Israel’s blessing, were significant enough that in December 2019, Haniyeh told Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani that the Gulf state’s cash to Gaza was “Hamas’s main artery.”
Qatar’s International Media Office issued a statement calling the documents “fabricated,” and asserting that the Channel 12 report was another “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 reports come as the Prime Minister’s Office is embroiled in the so-called Qatargate affair in which two of Netanyahu’s senior aides are suspected of taking money to spread pro-Qatari messaging to reporters, in order to boost the Gulf state’s image as a mediator in the ongoing Gaza war.
The war was sparked by the October 7, 2023, attack, in which some 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
A close aide to the prime minister, Jonatan Urich, and a former Netanyahu former military affairs spokesperson, Eli Feldstein, are suspected of multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm. They are suspected of contact with a foreign agent and breach of trust, due to what prosecutors believe was their work to improve Doha’s image as a hostage negotiation mediator while simultaneously working as advisers to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption in a separate case, has not been directly accused in the Qatar affair.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-netanyahu-approved-major-deals-between-top-israeli-defense-companies-and-qatar/.
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