Clip uses Qatar emir’s comments to falsely claim he threatened to cut off gas over Israel’s Gaza strikes

“The Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani threatens to cause a global gas supply shortage (sic),” wrote a social media user who posted the video on X (formerly Twitter) on October 13, 2023.

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Screenshot showing the false post, taken on October 18, 2023

The video shows Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, addressing the media.

“The Palestinian cause began as a cause of a people uprooted from their land,” he says in Arabic.

In the footage, also shared on Facebook, the logo of the Al Jazeera news organisation can be seen on the lower right side of the screen.

Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of natural gas, according to a 2021 report by the US Energy Information Administration (archived here).

Hamas-Israel conflict

Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering a deadly war.

The conflict has also sparked protests across the Middle East against Israel and its Western allies (archived here).

However, the claim that the video shows Qatar’s emir making gas supply threats is false.

Old clip from 2017

AFP Fact Check first debunked the claim in French.

Using a reverse image search on a screenshot from the video, we found a longer version on Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel. It was uploaded more than six years ago (archived here).

According to the caption, the clip was filmed at the 17th Doha Forum held in May 2017 (archived here).

It shows the Qatari emir talking about Palestinian refugees.

"The refugee crisis is the result of regional conflicts, civil wars, and displacement operations based on racial, ethnic, sectarian, or other backgrounds. Some of them go back decades, such as the displacement of Palestinian refugees in 1948 in the Palestinian Nakba, which is mentioned these days,” he says.

Then follows the full quote containing the short phrase shared in the misleading social media clip: “It is correct to say that the Palestinian issue began as the issue of a people uprooted from their lands. Their land and displacement from this homeland, including what is relatively recent, such as the case of Iraqi immigrants fleeing the siege."

AFP Fact Check also found no credible news reports that al-Thani threatened to cut off gas supplies. No statements to that effect have been published on the websites of the Qatari government (archived here) or the state-run news agency (archived here).

A Qatari official also confirmed to AFP on October 16, 2023, that “this is another case of online disinformation against Qatar – such a statement has never been made and never will be. Qatar does not politicise its LNG supplies or any economic investments.”

Find AFP Fact Check’s disinformation coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here.