Qatar has become the epicenter of international crisis diplomacy. Intelligence agencies and diplomats, including Germans, can be found all over the place. And they're all seeking direct contact with Hamas to free their citizens from the hands of the terrorist organization. Among those abducted from Israel on October 7 are at least eight hostages who hold German passports.

Western diplomats say that Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, 61, is negotiating from Qatar with the Gaza-based commander of the Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, who is responsible for the massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis.

Mohammed Deif is the one who ordered his fighters three weeks ago to break through the border fence, kill Israeli civilians and then kidnap men, women, children and elderly people. And that explains why Haniyeh is one of the most-sought after contacts here in Qatar right now.

But why, some observers wonder, is the head of the terrorist organization even in Qatar? The country is one of NATO's closest allies in the Gulf and has even been designated as a "Major Non-NATO Ally."

Why is he using Doha as a base from which to speak with the man who started this war? Is Qatar, which just welcomed the rest of the globe as the host of the World Cup, ultimately part of the terror network itself, as some German media claim and politicians have suggested? Or does it play an important role as an intermediary?

"How quickly do you Germans forget?" asks one Qatari government official in Doha. Clearly irked, the man, in his 40s, is sitting in his office on the 34th floor of one of the Qatari capital’s glassed-in skyscrapers. In 2011, then United States President Barack Obama personally requested that the Emir of Qatar take the leadership of Hamas into his country.

At the time, Washington was seeking to establish a communications channel to the Iranian-backed terrorist group. The Americans believed that a Hamas office in Doha would be easier to access than a Hamas bureau in Tehran. Since then, Hamas chief Haniyeh has been living on the Arabian Peninsula, and with him are several veterans of the terrorist organization, including prominent Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

$30 Million a Month for Hamas, with Israeli Approval

It thus surprised the Qataris somewhat when Germany's mass-circulation tabloid Bild newspaper splashed headlines that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would be welcoming the "blood sheikh" and "top sponsor of terror" on the occasion of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani's mid-October arrival in Berlin for a long-planned state visit. They were disappointed when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock essentially accused the distinguished visitor from Doha of being politically unreliable by saying that she wanted to make it "very clear" that the Qataris "have a responsibility to clearly stand up to the most brutal terror. We will not accept support for terrorism."

The official in Qatar shrugs his shoulders and asks whether such "cluelessness" is the norm inside the German Foreign Ministry.

Qatar does, the official allows, transfer $30 million each month to the Hamas administration in Gaza. But those payments are performed in consultation with Washington and Israel - and with their approval, he says.

Each month, he says, construction materials worth tens of millions of dollars are also delivered from Egypt to Gaza via the Rafah border crossing. those supplies are then sold by Hamas. He says the organization uses the proceeds to pay its administrative staff. Israel, in turn, he explains, supplies $10 million worth of diesel fuel to the Gaza Strip each month, with Qatar providing another 10 million to needy families. They receive $100 each, "martyr families excluded," the government representative stresses.

Doha Deliberately Vague about Relations

The official then asks: Didn’t Qatar only recently pledge gas supplies to Germany’s economy minister because of the war in Ukraine? Does the German foreign minister no longer remember, he asks, how Qatar flew tens of thousands of Germans and vulnerable people out of Afghanistan after the collapse of the government in Kabul in August 2021, under dramatic circumstances?

Qatar, to be sure, is not entirely innocent when it comes to the confusion about their links to terror organizations. The country's rulers prefer to keep a veil over their relations with their unsavory guests. Leaders in Doha have also proved unwilling to issue a clear condemnation of the murderous attacks on Israeli citizens. You have to listen extremely carefully to discern any sort of criticism of Hamas terrorists in the emir's speech last week before the Shura Council, the country's largely powerless legislative body. In his speech, the head of state condemned "attacks on innocent civilians, regardless of their nationality."

What Did Hamas Boss in Doha Know?

But what good is a liaison office to a terrorist organization if it isn't able to prevent a horrific attack on Israeli citizens that had been years in the making? And what did the Hamas chief know? Was he aware of the terrorist plot before it happened?

"Haniyeh was as clueless as the CIA, the Mossad and Qatar, all of which failed, we believe him on that," explains a Western diplomat who works closely with Qatari security services. When his hosts contacted Hamas leader Haniyeh at noon on the day of the attack, he was in Istanbul for the weekend on personal business and initially didn’t pick up his phone. "He didn’t know anything."

One possible explanation for that, says the diplomat, is that the political and military wings of Hamas are deeply divided. Hamas leader Haniyeh in Qatar and Mohammed Deif, the head of the Qassam Brigades in Gaza, are from two different camps.

Deif’s real name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri. In their efforts to kill Deif, it is thought that the Israelis have wounded him on two occasions. The Israelis believe that Deif likely has trouble walking and has lost an eye. Now 58 years old, he was born in the refugee camp Khan Younis in southern Gaza before going on to study chemistry and physics. The name Deif can be translated as "guest," a nom de guerre that al-Masri apparently chose for himself because he rarely stays in any one place for long and largely avoids sleeping for two nights in the same bed.

In the late 1980s, Deif spent 16 months in an Israeli prison without ever being charged. Following his release, he founded the Qassam Brigades, which he deployed for the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, as Hamas refers to the October 7 attacks on Israel.

Did Images of Humiliated Muslims Trigger the Attack?

It is believed that he came up with the plan over two years ago, galvanized by a clash at the highly symbolic Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in May 2021. Israeli security forces that month broke up a gathering of tens of thousands of Palestinians at the site, an outgrowth of protests against the purportedly looming eviction of Palestinians by Israeli settlers. The images of humiliated Muslims, intelligence officials believe, served as the trigger for Deif’s plan.

Diplomats and Qataris, for their part, defend Haniyeh’s presence in Qatar, saying it is vital to have a direct line to Hamas. Only Haniyeh, they say, is able to speak personally to military wing leader Deif on the phone.

Officials in Doha are eager to insist that the Qataris have recently only been tolerating the presence of Hamas for tactical reasons. Terror group functionaries who aren’t prepared to do much for their own people, but who live in prosperity themselves, are "not easy guests," they say.

"We support the Palestinian fight for their own state, but do not harbor any sort of sympathy for Hamas," says the official in the Doha skyscraper. But, he adds, they prefer to avoid such clear statements in public so as not to sever communication channels.

Qatar is a "mediator, not a party" in this conflict, says the Qatari official, adding that Doha is not a hideout for extremists, but a "platform for difficult talks."

It is a role that Qatar has long sought to establish as its trademark. Since 2014, the country has also been home to the leadership of the radical Islamist group Taliban, which met for years here with representatives of Afghan civil society. The Iranians find it advantageous to have a line of communication with the Americans via Qatar. And the Saudi Arabians value Doha’s good relations with Iran when it comes to the conflict in Yemen.

Does the Ground Offensive Put the Hostages in Danger?

Recently, says the Qatari official, the emir of Qatar even conducted negotiations on behalf of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the return of Ukrainian children who had been abducted and taken to Russia. "We just talk to everybody."

Until the beginning of the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday, Qatar had been "cautiously optimistic" about being able to save the lives of the hostages taken by Hamas. Most recently, talks had centered on the release of a large group of prisoners – around 90 of the 239 hostages.

That had also been the reason that several regional powers – including Amman, Doha and Riyadh – emphatically warned Washington against an expansion of the military operation. The government of Saudi Arabia said that even more was at stake than the lives of the hostages: "The stability of the entire region."

Why, then, did U.S. President Joe Biden allow Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to move ahead with the ground offensive anyway? After all, American security experts in Doha themselves also believe the ongoing ground offensive is both misguided and dangerous: "militarily, morally and politically."

The answer to this question that can be found in Doha is a surprising one. Because it isn’t informed by the political attempt to prevent the development of an even greater calamity in Gaza and the region at large. Rather, it is the product of pure arithmetic. Allegedly, it all has to do with the U.S. presidential elections set to take place 12 months from now.