Qatar on Wednesday lambasted a probe by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency that cited the Gulf state’s money to Gaza over the years as having contributed to Hamas’s buildup of its forces for the October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Doha insisted that “no aid has ever been delivered to Hamas’s political or military wing” and accused the Shin Bet of “scapegoating Qatar” in the agency’s report about failures leading up to Hamas’s onslaught.

The Shin Bet pointed, among many other factors, to Israel’s yearslong policy of facilitating payments by Qatar to Hamas-ruled Gaza. The Gulf state, with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, has long hosted some of Hamas’s political leadership.

The Qatari payments to Gaza were officially never to fund the Hamas terror organization itself, but some have challenged whether this panned out, and the policy has been criticized as ignoring the fungibility of money regardless, with critics arguing that Hamas, taken off the hook for legitimate payments, would simply divert its savings to fund terror instead.

The Shin Bet probe’s full results are secret, but a summary provided to the press noted various factors had helped the terror group in building up its strength.

The summary mentioned that between 2018 and 2021, Israel approved the transfer of Qatari funds “for the cash payment of Hamas employees’ salaries” as well as “the transfer of large amounts of cash to families” in need. The summary later named “the flow of money from Qatar to Gaza and its delivery to Hamas’s military........

© The Times of Israel