People stroll alongside a avenue as a plume of smoke rises within the background throughout an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp within the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas motion proceed.

Mahmud Hams/AFP by way of Getty Images

disguise caption

toggle caption

Mahmud Hams/AFP by way of Getty Images

People stroll alongside a avenue as a plume of smoke rises within the background throughout an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp within the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas motion proceed.

Mahmud Hams/AFP by way of Getty Images

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.

Despite its small dimension, Qatar’s affect spreads far. It’s house to the Al Jazeera information community and a sprawling U.S. airbase with U.S. troops. Last 12 months, 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 is an in depth U.S. ally and the regional energy finest positioned to each affect Hamas and play a mediating position with Israel.

The battle 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, in line with Israeli officers. 1 / 4 of one million Israelis have evacuated their houses because of the risk of additional assaults, and Gaza rocket hearth on Israel continues every 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, in line with Palestinian well being officers in Gaza. Nearly 200,000 houses have been destroyed and the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million persons are largely displaced, affected by shortages of unpolluted water, medication, gasoline, meals and electrical energy.

Qatar just isn’t instantly concerned within the battle, however is not any bystander both.

Here is what to learn about its position in Gaza and past.

Yocheved Lifshitz, a freed hostage, speaks to media in entrance of Ichilov Hospital in Israel on Oct. 24, after she was launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance by way of Getty Images

disguise caption

toggle caption

Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance by way of Getty Images

Yocheved Lifshitz, a freed hostage, speaks to media in entrance of Ichilov Hospital in Israel on Oct. 24, after she was launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance by way of Getty Images

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 the territory’s crossing with Egypt. Several dozen Palestinians, of greater than 22,000 wounded within the battle, have additionally been set free to obtain remedy in Egypt this week, in line with the Palestinian well being officers.

Qatar has been capable of play this position as a result of it has hosted Hamas leaders in exile, although it is unclear whether or not it could maintain doing so amid growing pressure 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 kids and aged, held by militants in Gaza.

Qatar has lengthy hosted or instantly talked to teams the U.S. and Europe don’t wish to cope with instantly in troublesome negotiations. That has helped Qatar exert affect, play a key position on the worldwide stage and preserve 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 lecturers, 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 studies and analysts say Qatar has despatched more than $1 billion to Gaza over the previous decade.

Qatar despatched that help by gasoline to the Gaza Strip’s Hamas authorities, which in flip offered it and paid partial salaries. In the previous, the cash was despatched via suitcases stuffed with cash.

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 attacks on Israel.

His detractors say the coverage was aimed toward weakening the rival Palestinian Authority within the West Bank and perpetuating the rift between the 2 Palestinian factions with a view to keep away from participating 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 tender energy

The Qatar-based information community, primarily funded by the federal government, is among the most generally seen Arabic channels on this planet. It’s additionally one of many only a few broadcasting stay from throughout the Gaza Strip all through the present battle. It’s broadcasting on Arabic and English channels.

The community has lengthy angered Israel and a few Middle East governments for its different viewpoints on main Mideast crises, just like the Arab Spring revolts. Critics say the channel promoted Islamist actions. But for tons of of tens of millions of houses with Arabic satellite tv for pc receivers that may watch Al Jazeera, it’s an indispensable supply of stories and data.

Israel’s Cabinet 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 coverage of the carnage in Gaza.

The information community and Qatar have been intertwined because the 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 masking the Israeli-Palestinian battle. Last 12 months, Shireen Abu Akleh, a longtime Palestinian American reporter and family identify within the Middle East, was killed whereas sporting a clearly marked “press” vest within the West Bank. Israel and the U.S. say an Israeli soldier was more than likely accountable for killing her.

In current weeks, dozens of members of the family of Al Jazeera’s workers in Gaza have been killed within the Israel-Hamas battle, together with the spouse, son, daughter and grandchild of Gaza correspondent Wael Dahdouh.

Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh attends the funeral of his spouse, son and daughter, after their house was hit within the Nuseirat camp within the middle of Gaza, the place that they had sought refuge after being displaced by the preliminary bombardment of their neighborhood, Oct. 26.

Ashraf Amra/Anadolu by way of Getty Images

disguise caption

toggle caption

Ashraf Amra/Anadolu by way of Getty Images

Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh attends the funeral of his spouse, son and daughter, after their house was hit within the Nuseirat camp within the middle of Gaza, the place that they had sought refuge after being displaced by the preliminary bombardment of their neighborhood, Oct. 26.

Ashraf Amra/Anadolu by way of Getty Images

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 towards the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Qatar was instrumental in evacuating people 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 area within the Persian Gulf. Iran rushed to its help when several Arab states cut ties with Qatar for a number of years over its insurance policies within the area.

President Biden designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, elevating the safety partnership much more. Late final 12 months, his administration described Qatar as one of many United States’ “closest military partners in the region” and stated Qatar’s efforts in Gaza had helped to stabilize the territory.

Meanwhile, Qatar can be house to senior Hamas leaders in exile, comparable to Khalid Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. It’s unclear exactly how a lot Hamas leaders overseas knew in regards to the Oct. 7 shock assault on Israel. They’ve come under scrutiny for their upscale lifestyles abroad as Gazans endure at house.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani waits for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Lusail, Qatar, on Oct. 13.

Jacquelyn Martin/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

disguise caption

toggle caption

Jacquelyn Martin/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani waits for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Lusail, Qatar, on Oct. 13.

Jacquelyn Martin/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

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 Bank, lethal raids into Palestinian cities there and permitting extra Israeli hardliners into the delicate Al Aqsa Mosque compound, identified to Jews because the Temple Mount.

Still, Qatar was one of many first Gulf Arab states to ascertain official commerce ties with Israel within the Nineties. But Israel’s workplace in Doha was completely shuttered after Israel’s battle in Gaza in 2009, and now there are not any official ties between Israel and Qatar.

Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani stated “enough is enough” final week in a speech to his nation’s consultative Shura Council, describing Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip as “barbaric.”

Despite this sharp rhetoric, Israel’s Mossad intelligence chief was recently in Qatar to debate the discharge of hostages held in Gaza.

NPR’s Daniel Estrin contributed to this story from Tel Aviv.