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Israeli Intelligence, Financial Incentives Pressure Gaza Residents to Leave the Enclave

Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Tuesday. (AP)
Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Tuesday. (AP)
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Israeli Intelligence, Financial Incentives Pressure Gaza Residents to Leave the Enclave

Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Tuesday. (AP)
Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Tuesday. (AP)

Israel’s approach to the issue of displacement in Gaza remains unclear as it resorts to bombing and fear on the one hand, and promises and incentives on the other.

Israel is using both force and persuasion: striking areas to push people to flee, while at the same time hinting at “voluntary” departure through softer, indirect messages.

Caught between fear and false hope, residents of Gaza face growing confusion and chaos over what many see as Israel’s attempt to push them out through a mix of pressure and persuasion.

For nearly 19 months, relentless bombardment and bloodshed have left Gazans desperate for safety and stability — a vulnerability Israel appears to be exploiting through varied strategies aimed at forcing displacement.

The picture grew even murkier in recent days, as many residents received text messages from Israeli phone numbers urging them to contact intelligence officers via WhatsApp to coordinate their departure.

Some messages proposed specific times to meet near the Netzarim Corridor, a site often used for Israeli military operations inside Gaza. Several Gaza residents reported receiving calls from Israeli lawyers, urging them to sign powers of attorney to facilitate their displacement from the enclave.

Shattered dreams

One such individual, a man in his late 30s, shared that he received a call last Thursday from a law firm in Tel Aviv. The firm offered him the chance to sign documents to secure papers enabling his travel out of Gaza.

The offer extended beyond paperwork. The lawyer’s office assured him he would receive $5,000 before being arranged for travel through Ramon Airport to a European country, or potentially to Indonesia or Malaysia.

The man, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity, explained that he had previously visited a European country, hoping to stay and obtain residency. However, that attempt failed, and he returned to Gaza.

A screenshot of a phone message Hamas says is from Israeli intelligence to a resident of Gaza. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

This might have been one of the reasons he was targeted again, as the firm seemed to want to rekindle a long-lost hope.

After declining the offer, he began receiving multiple messages on his phone urging him to contact an Israeli intelligence officer via WhatsApp to expedite his travel arrangements.

As Israel’s efforts to displace Gazans intensify, more residents are coming forward with stories of offers and coercion aimed at convincing them to leave the region.

An academic from Gaza, who asked to be identified by a false name, Bassam, recently received a notification inviting him to prepare for departure alongside fellow researchers and artists and their families.

The invitation came as part of a program backed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, designed to attract and support scholars and professionals by facilitating their integration into higher education, research institutions, and cultural organizations in France.

Bassem explained that they were instructed to gather at a designated location in Gaza before being transported by land to the Kerem Shalom crossing and then flown to Paris via Ramon Airport.

He shared that he would leave with his wife and their four children, hoping the opportunity would allow them to build a new future that not only benefits their academic prospects, but also contributes to the rebuilding efforts in Gaza.

Among the dual nationals contacted by Asharq Al-Awsat, Fares, also using a fake name, described how he traveled to a European country after securing approval from the embassy of the nation he holds citizenship with. He signed documents confirming his voluntary departure from Gaza, having applied for the move nearly a year earlier. He left Gaza with his family just recently.

Deceptive messages

Amid the uncertainty, Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security issued a warning on Tuesday about what it called “campaigns to deceive citizens” into leaving their homeland.

In a statement posted on its official Facebook page, the ministry condemned the ongoing psychological pressure and misleading messages reaching residents' phones. These messages, often accompanied by phone calls, urge people to meet with Israeli intelligence agents under the pretense of allowing them to travel abroad.

The ministry strongly advised citizens to ignore any such messages or calls, stressing the potential dangers posed by these deceptive tactics.

It also called on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to halt its “malicious campaigns” targeting Palestinians, which says constitutes a violation of international law and amounts to forced displacement.

“What the occupation failed to achieve after months of genocide and aggression against our people, it will not accomplish through deception and manipulation,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry, which is affiliated with Hamas, also warned it would take legal action against anyone found cooperating with the misleading messages.

Israel’s persistent displacement efforts

The deceptive messages serve as a reminder of Israel’s ongoing, relentless attempts to force the displacement of Gaza’s population. These efforts have ranged from enforcing a policy of “scorched earth” to establishing an administration aimed at facilitating voluntary migration, and even releasing media reports suggesting that foreign countries might accept Gaza migrants. These reports have been widely denied by the countries involved.

Last month, Egypt rejected claims circulated by Israeli media that it had agreed to temporarily house half a million Gaza residents in a designated city in northern Sinai as part of a reconstruction plan for the enclave.

The Egyptian State Information Service issued a statement firmly rejecting “any attempt to forcibly or voluntarily displace Palestinian brothers from Gaza, particularly to Egypt,” emphasizing that such a move would constitute a liquidation of the Palestinian cause and pose a direct threat to Egypt’s national security.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House on February 4, 2025. (AFP)

In February, US President Donald Trump proposed, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, a plan to “relocate Palestinians” from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, while the US would take control of the territory and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

This proposal was met with widespread Arab and international condemnation, particularly from Egypt and Jordan.

In response to the US proposal, Egypt developed a reconstruction plan for Gaza, which was approved during the Arab League’s Emergency Summit on Palestine in Cairo on March 4.

Meanwhile, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced in April that his country was prepared to temporarily host Palestinians affected by the conflict in Gaza, particularly those wounded or traumatized, as well as orphans.

However, he emphasized that this move would be “temporary” until conditions in Gaza improved and safe return was possible. Indonesia reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution.

In March, Israel revealed plans to set up an office for “voluntary migration,” aimed at facilitating the departure of Gaza residents to third countries.

Sick and injured, not migrants

According to Gaza’s government agencies, the few individuals who have recently left the territory are primarily patients and wounded individuals, not migrants, who have completed the necessary travel procedures to receive treatment abroad.

In the past four days, several families with injured individuals, patients, and dual nationals have left Gaza. These groups gathered in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis before traveling through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Jordan or Ramon Airport, from where they flew to various destinations.

No sources have confirmed the claims that these individuals were forced to sign papers agreeing not to return or to be removed from the civil registry.

Wasem Attiya pushes his father, Mohamed, 54, in a wheelchair as they head to Shifa hospital in Gaza City for a dialysis session, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP)

Europe tightens migration policies

Palestinians who left Gaza during or prior to the war have described how many European countries had already imposed stricter immigration policies even before October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

With the rise of the far-right in several European countries, immigration has become one of the most contentious issues, with some calls to expel Palestinians and Arabs from these countries. Others have even rejected offers to take in patients or injured individuals from Gaza.

Independent sources and expatriates in Europe confirmed that the majority of those allowed to travel from Gaza are primarily patients and the injured, with coordination between Israel and the World Health Organization.

Some European nations had allowed limited family reunification for Gaza residents already living in Europe, though this has almost entirely stopped, the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Currently, those permitted to travel are individuals holding foreign nationalities, with a small number of students allowed to go to Ireland. However, severe restrictions make it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain official visas to enter Europe.

Amidst the ongoing destruction and displacement, the residents of Gaza continue to suffer.

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Features

Atef Najib in Court: Reconstructing the Story of the ‘First Spark’ in Syria’s Uprising

Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Atef Najib in Court: Reconstructing the Story of the ‘First Spark’ in Syria’s Uprising

Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
Atef Najib at the Damascus courthouse on April 26, 2026. (Reuters)

The arrest of schoolchildren in the southern Syrian city of Daraa in March 2011 is widely regarded as the spark that ignited the Syrian uprising. What began as a local incident evolved into nationwide protests and, eventually, a devastating civil war.

Fifteen years later, the case has resurfaced as Syrian authorities pursue accountability for abuses committed under Bashar al-Assad's regime, placing former Daraa Political Security Department chief Atef Najib at the center of one of the conflict’s defining episodes.

As transitional justice efforts gather pace under President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, the “Daraa children case” has become a key test of whether Syria’s judicial institutions can confront the legacy of arbitrary detention, systematic torture, and repression.

Asharq Al-Awsat interviewed two of the children detained at the time, now adults, whose testimonies revisit the events behind the slogan, “It’s your turn, Doctor”—a reference to Assad—that was scrawled by children on a school wall and became synonymous with the uprising’s beginning.

Fifteen years later, they said that the central question is no longer who wrote the slogan, but how it became the pretext for mass arrests and the torture of children.

Their accounts reconstruct the sequence of events while reinforcing the broader conclusion that what happened inside Syria’s security branches transformed a local incident into a turning point in the country’s history.

Naif Abazeed: Childhood in the interrogation cells

Naif Abazeed was 13 when he was arrested. His name has long been associated with writing the famous phrase, but he firmly rejects that claim.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the only graffiti he ever wrote was his own name and that of a friend on a wall at Daraa al-Balad Preparatory School in 2009.

He also disputed the widely circulated account placing the graffiti at Al-Arbaeen School, saying others appropriated his story while changing the location and timeline.

Abazeed said he never met Atef Najib. Instead, he identifies then-Col. Louay al-Ali as the officer who interrogated and tortured him.

While his testimony shifts attention to al-Ali’s direct role during the investigation, it does not absolve Najib. Rather, it distinguishes between the officer who conducted the interrogations and the security chief who commanded the apparatus responsible for the children’s detention.

Under international law, command responsibility extends beyond those who personally commit abuses to include superiors who knew, or should have known, about the violations and failed to prevent or punish them.

One of the children, now an adult, seen at the Al-Arbaeen School. (Getty Images)

Arrested at school

Abazeed recalled security officers arriving at his school after police had searched his home earlier that morning.

Al-Ali introduced himself as an education official investigating graffiti supposedly bearing the student’s name alongside that of a girlfriend.

Instead, the interrogation centered on the phrase, “It’s your turn, Doctor,” which had already been erased.

The boy was told he would be questioned briefly. Instead, he was taken to a Political Security Branch detention facility, where he said he was confronted with instruments of torture, beaten with cables and sticks, suspended, and forced into the “tire” stress position.

“I told them I had written nothing except my name in 2009,” he said. “The officer insisted I had written something else.”

Unable to withstand the abuse, Abazeed said he eventually confessed to something he had not done. He added that he only learned after his release that another student had actually written the phrase.

He also recounted being handed paper and ordered to write down everything that had appeared on the school walls. When the phrase was missing, the interrogator allegedly dictated it word by word while continuing to beat him until he repeated it in full. Only then did he understand that “Doctor” referred to President Bashar al-Assad.

The interrogation did not end there. Abazeed revealed that he was pressured to identify accomplices and, under torture, named classmates and neighbors, drawing more children into the investigation.

Demonstrators hold posters on the day Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, attends a trial session at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)

Another victim’s testimony

Samer Ali al-Sayasneh, another child detained in 2011 after being accused of burning a police kiosk near Al-Arbaeen School, has also testified against Najib in court.

He holds Najib fully responsible for the escalation in Daraa, from arbitrary arrests to orders that led to the deadly shootings at Omari Mosque and a nearby gas station.

According to al-Sayasneh, no security branch would have acted without Najib’s authorization, making any attempt to exonerate him implausible.

The legal case

Lawyer Noha al-Masri told Asharq Al-Awsat that prosecutors are relying primarily on Syrian law, including Law No. 16 of 2022, provisions of the Syrian Penal Code, and Legislative Decree No. 20 of 2013.

She said the abuses committed in Daraa in March 2011 could also meet the international definition of crimes against humanity because they formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians.

Al-Masri stressed that criminal responsibility extends beyond direct perpetrators to those who planned, ordered, supervised, or knowingly allowed the abuses to occur, reflecting the established principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.

She added that victims’ testimony, videos, medical reports, and official documents together could provide the foundation for one of the most significant trials in modern Syrian history - one likely to shape future accountability cases.

Syrian law also allows victims to seek compensation for the physical, psychological, material, and moral harm they suffered.

Strengthening the evidentiary record, she underlined, depends on corroborating witness testimony with videos, official documents, and medical and human rights reports.

Features

Israel Struck an Iranian Steel Facility. Was it a Valid Military Target?

This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
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Israel Struck an Iranian Steel Facility. Was it a Valid Military Target?

This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)
This video grab taken on April 3, 2026, from undated UGC images shared on social media on April 1, 2026, shows thick plumes of smoke rising following airstrikes in Baharestan, in Iran's central Isfahan province. (Photo by various sources / AFP)

Washington: Yeganeh Torbati

Over the course of the Iran war, US and Israeli warplanes hit missile depots and launchers, security forces’ headquarters and air defense systems.

Yet not all of the targets during the six-week campaign were traditional military sites.

On March 27, and again a few days later, Israeli airstrikes pounded a vast steel complex just outside Isfahan called Mobarakeh Steel, and another one in the southwest of the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his country’s strikes had slashed Iran’s steel production capacity and eliminated revenue for the powerful Revolutionary Guards, whose repression underpins the Iranian government.

Companies like Mobarakeh illustrate the complexities inherent to Iran’s economy. While Iran’s clerical leadership and security forces are deeply enmeshed in the country’s most profitable and important businesses, those same companies are vital to the livelihoods of millions of ordinary Iranians, regardless of whether they have deep ideological allegiance to the government.

The attacks shut down major parts of the Isfahan plant for weeks, idling over 20,000 workers and choking off the supply of steel to domestic manufacturers. “I felt like my own home had been destroyed,” said Mostafa, a former employee, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution by the government.

The United States and Iran have lurched between peace talks and exchanges of fire in recent weeks. Their negotiations were expected to cover the economic benefits Iran might receive in return for long-term limits on its nuclear program.

The interim ceasefire agreement, signed last month, could result in as much as $300 billion for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development. But that now seems a distant prospect, after Trump said this week that he believed the temporary truce was “over.”

If any investment does flow to Iran, companies like Mobarakeh will undoubtedly come into focus because of their importance to Iran’s economy, as well as their affiliation with Iran’s most powerful security forces.

Trump has frequently threatened to attack Iranian infrastructure, and if war restarts, there will be scrutiny over any such strikes.

On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps accused the United States of striking a railway bridge that connected the country with Turkmenistan.

A spokesman for US Central Command confirmed that the United States struck the railway bridge, describing it as military logistics infrastructure that enabled a flow of weapons and other military supplies to key areas.

Mobarakeh has provided revenue to an investment fund belonging to a state-run militia, the Basij, which answers to the Guards, according to the US Treasury.

A 2021 report by Iran’s Parliament identified the investment fund as a major shareholder of Mobarakeh.

Recent financial statements from Mobarakeh show that its shareholders include an investment fund ultimately controlled by Iran’s supreme leader.

Although the statements do not show a link to the Guards, they often obscure their ownership through proxy investors.

In justifying the strikes on steel facilities, Netanyahu said they would deprive the regime “of both financial resources and the ability to produce many weapons.”

Mobarakeh executives did not respond to a request for comment, and it is unclear if the steel produced at Mobarakeh was used in making Iran’s weapon systems.

“Mobarakeh Steel products might not be directly used in missile production, but the company is most probably engaged in research and development of modern high-strength steel alloys for future large-scale production,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute and an expert on Iranian military affairs.

He added, “Mobarakeh Steel products, though, are more likely used in producing missile transporter-launcher vehicles.”

International law prohibits strikes on industrial sites that serve civilians, unless the facility makes an effective contribution to military action and striking it confers a definite military advantage, international law experts said.

The dominant international view rejects the idea that generating revenue for military operations is enough to qualify a civilian site as a military target, said Susana SaCouto, director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Miad Maleki, a former US Treasury official, said that while he believed the complex was a legitimate target for sanctions, he doubted that it should have been hit in military strikes.

“These are the Iranian people’s assets, and it’s going to hurt the economy even way beyond the Islamic republic,” he said.

“It does employ many people and pay salaries for many people,” Maleki added. “But at the same time, it’s really just a major source of revenue for a lot of corrupt actors.”

Opaque ownership

Built by an Italian business group, Mobarakeh became operational in 1992 and was a symbol of Iran’s industrial development and rebuilding after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

People with ties to the Revolutionary Guards moved into leadership positions at the plant starting in the late 1990s, two former employees said, declining to be named to avoid repercussions from Iran’s government.

For instance, Mehdi Taj, a former senior Guards commander, served on the complex’s board of directors and held an executive position there in the early 2000s.

Taj is now the director of Iran’s soccer federation, which did not respond to a request for comment.

And a privatization drive carried out in the mid-2000s transferred portions of state-owned companies, like Mobarakeh, to powerful and opaque players such as the Guards and conglomerates that answer to Iran’s clerical leadership.

In 2008, a consortium led by Mehr Eghtesad Iranian Investment Company, an outfit belonging to the Basij, purchased 45% of Mobarakeh’s shares.

As of 2021, Mehr Eghtesad was one of Mobarakeh’s largest shareholders, with a nearly 14% stake, according to a parliamentary report written that year.

The Basij is one of the primary forces that the regime deploys to suppress protests, including the recent nationwide demonstrations in December and January. Those protests arose over discontent with Iran’s currency crisis and perceived economic mismanagement by the government.

Mehr Eghtesad’s owner, a bank, in 2020 merged with another Iranian bank, Bank Sepah, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Mobarakeh earned roughly $1.6 billion in net profit in 2024-2025. The US Treasury said in 2018 that the company “has provided millions of dollars” annually to Mehr Eghtesad.

“Some part of the economy is run through the government, but some larger part of the economy is run through the shadow government or Revolutionary Guards,” said Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

One relatively new shareholder of Mobarakeh, according to documents filed with the Tehran Stock Exchange, is a company belonging to Astan-e Quds-e Razavi, an Iranian foundation that the United States put sanctions on in 2021 for being controlled by Iran’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The company owned 1.79% of Mobarakeh as of last year.

Other major owners include several state-owned pension funds. Iran’s pension funds have been struggling for years to make payments to retirees, and the destruction of key sectors of the economy is likely to worsen that problem.

Iranian legislators investigated possible corruption by managers at Mobarakeh in 2021 and blamed many of its issues on the flawed process of privatization, saying it was “now governed by completely opaque ownership alongside entirely state-controlled management.”

A ‘beloved’ company

Interviews with some of the people who used to work at Mobarakeh present another image of the company.

For aspiring engineers growing up in Isfahan, working at Mobarakeh was a “dream job,” said Maryam, who now lives outside Iran. She and some other former employees whom The New York Times spoke to requested that they not be fully identified, for fear of repercussions for speaking publicly.

Some said they felt they were at a prestigious, state-of-the-art company that was contributing to the country and cared about their well-being.

“Even before I was born, my father was working in steel,” said Maziyar Shokrani, who, like his father, worked at Mobarakeh.

Shokrani began working there as a lawyer in the mid-2000s, taking a bus each day to the sprawling plant 40 miles outside Isfahan. “I know my entire life and existence to be from steel,” he said.

Mobarakeh also donated funds to build stadiums and educational institutions and supported poor families in the area surrounding the complex, said Mostafa, the former employee, who now lives outside Iran.

“It was beloved in that region,” Mostafa said. “Any industry that hit a snag, or any group that had a problem, they had some hope that Mobarakeh Steel would arrange for some kind of support.”

The Iranian news outlet Rouydad24 reported in early May that of 27,000 workers, just 2,000 were still working at the plant. Iranian officials have said that Mobarakeh is being rebuilt more quickly than expected, and in early June the company relaunched a furnace that had been damaged in the strikes.

In interviews, former employees had differing views about who was to blame for the strikes on Mobarakeh.

“More of the blame should be cast with the Guards, because it deliberately and consciously took the country’s economy down this path,” said Shokrani, who now lives outside Iran.

In the minds of Iranians, the United States and Israel were closely linked in their conduct of the war, said Abbas Kamranian-Marnani, a mechanical engineer who worked at Mobarakeh or its contractors for a decade and now lives in Europe. “They worked mostly toward the destruction of infrastructure and the destruction of Iran,” he said.

Kamranian-Marnani said strikes like the one on the steel plant had caused Iranians to lose hope in the idea of better relations with the United States.

A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said they did not know of any US role in the steel strikes.

The New York Times

Features

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa: The Emir Who Transformed Qatar

Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa: The Emir Who Transformed Qatar

Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Asharq Al-Awsat)

With the passing of the Father Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar closes the chapter on one of the Gulf region's most significant political and development success stories of recent decades. His name became synonymous with the most profound transformation in the country's modern history, as Qatar evolved during his reign from a state with a limited international profile into an influential player in regional and global politics, economics, and media.

Sheikh Hamad is widely regarded as one of Qatar's defining leaders and the architect of its modern renaissance. Under his leadership, the country underwent sweeping economic, social, and cultural transformation. During his reign, Qatar's gross domestic product expanded more than twenty-fourfold, while GDP per capita increased nearly sixfold.

Born in Doha in 1952, Sheikh Hamad graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1971. He then joined the armed forces, rising through the military ranks before being appointed Crown Prince and Minister of Defense in 1977. On June 27, 1995, he assumed power, and in June 2013 handed authority to his son, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in a smooth transfer of power widely regarded as one of the region's rare peaceful successions.

A Strong Economy

Sheikh Hamad's economic strategy centered on harnessing Qatar's vast natural gas wealth to build a strong and diversified economy. During his years in power, the country's GDP grew dramatically, average incomes rose sharply, and exports of liquefied natural gas ushered in a new era in Qatar's history. Following the first LNG shipment in 1996, Qatar became the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas by 2006, generating enormous revenues that financed major investments in infrastructure, education, healthcare, and public services.

Expanding Qatar's International Role

On the international stage, Qatar adopted a far more active foreign policy, positioning itself as a mediator in a number of regional and international conflicts. Among its most prominent diplomatic efforts were its role in Lebanon during the 2006 war and the country's political crisis in 2008.

Qatar also took a leading role in supporting the Palestinian cause, particularly through economic assistance to the Gaza Strip and by providing a platform for negotiations aimed at ending the conflict there. In 2012, Sheikh Hamad became the first Arab leader to visit Gaza after Hamas took control of the territory.

He also forged close strategic ties with the United States. During his reign, Al Udeid Air Base was established in 1996. Qatar financed almost the entire construction of the base, at a cost exceeding $1 billion, as part of a strategy to strengthen its defense capabilities and deepen military cooperation with the United States following the Gulf War. By 2002, it had become one of the most important US. military bases outside the United States.

Qatar also participated in the international conference supporting post-Gaddafi Libya in Paris. During Sheikh Hamad's rule, Doha became a major supporter of the Syrian cause, providing extensive political and humanitarian backing to the Syrian opposition, an approach that continued in subsequent years.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Qatar pursued a foreign policy built on relative neutrality and open channels with opposing parties, allowing it to serve as a mediator in regional and international disputes. Over time, this approach became one of the country's most effective instruments of soft power, transforming Doha into a permanent venue for negotiations and political dialogue.

Today, the Qatari capital is widely recognized as one of the world's leading hubs for mediation and conflict resolution, a role first established under Sheikh Hamad and later expanded during the reign of Sheikh Tamim.

Soft Power

Just one year after assuming power, Sheikh Hamad launched the Al Jazeera Media Network in 1996. The network quickly became one of the Arab world's most influential media platforms, giving Qatar an outsized voice in regional political discourse. As the Arab world underwent profound political change, Al Jazeera emerged as one of Qatar's most powerful instruments of influence, elevating the country's international profile far beyond its geographic size.

The World Cup

Qatar's hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup was far more than a sporting event. It was a strategic national project and a defining milestone that reshaped the country's standing on the global stage.

By hosting football's biggest tournament, Qatar became both the first Arab nation and the first Middle Eastern country to stage the World Cup, earning unprecedented global visibility across the media, political, and economic spheres while reinforcing its image as a nation capable of organizing events of the highest international caliber.

The tournament also became one of Qatar's most effective soft power tools. Rather than relying solely on traditional forms of influence, Doha used sport to strengthen its international image, showcase its organizational capabilities, and capture the world's attention.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani leaves behind a lasting legacy in Qatar's modern history. His name is inseparable from the country's transformation from an economy largely dependent on natural resources into a state wielding influence through a diverse set of instruments, including economic strength, global investment, media, diplomacy, and sport.

Many of the defining features of Qatar's current policies remain rooted in the foundations he laid during his years in power, making his legacy one of the Gulf region's most significant political and developmental transformations in recent decades.