Report: Israeli intel warned Netanyahu twice that Hamas’s Deif was taking millions of Qatar’s Gaza aid

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned twice that Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif was appropriating funds provided by Qatar, Channel 12 reports, citing three security sources.

The first warning came in 2019 when then-Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman warned that Deif was taking millions from the funds entering Gaza, a year after the monthly payments began being transferred, the report says.

Then, in 2020, Military Intelligence warned Netanyahu again that $4 million was being taken by Deif each month, the report says.

Deif was slain in an airstrike last year amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The Prime Minister’s Office denies that Netanyahu ever received such warnings. It says it was warned that Hamas’s military wing was siphoning $4 million from its public funds, which came from “other sources,” and not the Qatari aid, the PMO says.

From 2018, Qatar provided hundreds millions of dollars in cash to pay for fuel for the Strip’s power plant, to pay Hamas’s civil servants and to provide aid to tens of thousands of impoverished families. The payments were publicly encouraged by Netanyahu.

The payments came under renewed scrutiny following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, as their apparent goal of keeping Israel’s southern border quiet by improving the economic situation in Gaza dramatically backfired.

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.