(Headline USA) Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on billionaire Bill Gates to ban Hamas terrorists from his Qatar hotel, noting the terrorist group’s leaders are known to be living in Qatar.
Hamas has even previously hosted events at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, Qatar, which is a part of the hotel company that Gates holds a majority stake in, including a 2016 reception with then-Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and a 2015 press conference by senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.
Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas Politburo, has also stayed at the Four Seasons resort. In fact, Israeli officials reported Haniyeh was “lounging” at the Gates-owned resort while overseeing the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The Four Seasons said in an Oct. 15 statement that “Haniyeh is not living at or staying at Four Seasons Hotel Doha,” but did not say whether he had been there earlier in the month or in months prior.
Gates’s Cascade Investment firm acquired a majority stake in the Four Seasons in 2021, buying 23.75% of the hotel company from Saudi Arabian billionaire Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud.
Waltz threatened to subject Gates to “counterterrorism sanctions” if he refuses to bar Hamas from using the Qatar resort. Gates would be giving “material support” to the terrorist organization, Waltz argued, opening the billionaire up to “legal penalties, including up to life in prison.”
Gates’ name could also be added to the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department’s visa database, or even placed on the Transportation Security Administration’s “do not fly” list, Waltz added.
“Perhaps more immediately, it mandates a broad exclusion from the United States any non-U.S. persons that engages in terrorist activity, including through actions like providing material support, such as housing, for terrorists,” Waltz said.
