Qatar has long played an indispensable role in brokering negotiations and leading multiple rounds of reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. However, recent months have witnessed an amplification of coordinated efforts to discredit Qatar and undermine its mediation role. Disinformation campaigns in both traditional news and social media outlets targeting Qatar, driven by extreme right-wing organisations in Israel and the U.S. and orchestrated through bot networks, seek to delegitimise Qatar's engagement precisely when its mediation capabilities are most needed.
The timing of these smear campaigns is notable, coinciding with the strengthening of the U.S.-Qatar strategic partnership. Israel's 9th September 2025 attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha has proven to be a strategic miscalculation, prompting the Trump administration to reinforce its relationship with Qatar. President Trump provided security guarantees, the FBI signed cooperation agreements with Qatari security forces, and a September 29 Executive Order reiterated joint cooperation in defense and security. These moves reflected Washington's recognition that Qatar's role remained vital to brokering and implementing any long-term ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Beyond the noise of coordinated attacks, three key points warrant close consideration.
Firstly, any negotiated solution to the crisis in Gaza requires proximity to, and inclusive engagement with, all actors. Qatar's critics allege that it has supported terrorism through hosting the Hamas office. Yet this office, which was established at the request of the U.S to facilitate negotiations in Doha, has proven essential to international conflict management efforts. Since the office opened in 2012, Gaza has experienced at least four major wars and multiple escalations, each requiring multi-party mediation to de-escalate and resolve. Without a centralised location for conducting negotiations, these mediation efforts would have been vastly more difficult, if not impossible. The alternative would entail Palestinian leaders scattered across locations from Tehran to Cairo and Istanbul, rather than in an accessible location providing clear lines of communication.
Qatar's role extends beyond managing immediate crises to enabling longer-term political transitions. Any sustainable resolution will require addressing Hamas's military capabilities and political leadership—processes that demand a trusted intermediary. Qatar's unique relationships position it to facilitate sensitive transitions, whether mediating disarmament arrangements or providing safe haven for departing Hamas leaders.
Secondly, the Gaza Strip faces an unprecedented scale of destruction requiring an estimated $70 billion to rebuild. Qatar and the Gulf States more broadly hold the keys to Gaza's large-scale reconstruction by virtue of their financial capacity and networks of relationships with the main regional and international actors. Moreover, Qatar has a demonstrable track record of carrying out complex housing and infrastructure projects under highly challenging conditions during previous rounds of reconstruction following wars in Gaza. At the same time, no state will commit large-scale support for rebuilding under continued Israeli occupation and without progress towards ceasefire implementation.
The contradictions in attacks on Qatar are revealing. For years, Israeli and right wing critics alleged that Qatar's reconstruction efforts amounted to strategic support for Hamas, using this to argue that Doha should be excluded from any post-war role in Gaza. Now, following a statement from the Qatari PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani that Qatar would not alone rebuild what Israel destroyed, similar sources accuse Doha of stalling on reconstruction support, equating this with support for Hamas attacks. These mutually contradictory messages reveal that the purpose is simply to discredit Qatar at all costs regardless of its actual positions or actions.
Israeli attempts to undermine Qatar are an effort to maintain the status quo. The ceasefire agreement has provided Israel with some breathing room internationally whilst allowing it to continue daily attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and focus its aggressive actions in Syria, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere. Discrediting the actor most central to the ongoing negotiations is intended to derail progress towards implementing the ceasefire, which would require full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The consequences extend beyond Gaza. Systematically attacking mediators sends a clear message that diplomatic engagement will be punished rather than protected—a message that corrodes the foundations of conflict resolution in Palestine and across the region.
The choice is not abstract. Either mediation is defended as necessary to political progress, or it is sacrificed to perpetual crisis management. Qatar's role brings this choice into sharp focus. Smearing the mediator does not advance peace, accountability, or reconstruction—it guarantees their delay. In Gaza, the cost of that delay will be measured not in political narratives but in continued instability and compounded suffering.