Alanoud Al Thani’s 2023 Posts on Hamas and Israeli Hostages Resurface During UNGA Week

Old posts by Qatari policy fellow Sheikha Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani about Hamas, Israeli hostages and critics of the group resurfaced this week after writer and OSINT investigator Eitan Fischberger drew attention to them while Al Thani was in New York during United Nations General Assembly week.

The posts date from the weeks and months following the Hamas led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. They include a statement comparing Hamas’s treatment of Israeli hostages favorably with American healthcare, a proposal to create a database of religious figures who condemned Hamas, and a later post taunting Israel over Hamas’s military performance on October 7.

Within hours of Fischberger publishing the material on September 23, Al Thani’s X account, @3nnadi, was placed in protected mode, making its posts inaccessible to people who were not approved followers. The account was public again later that evening. Fischberger then said that Al Thani had blocked him and deleted posts concerning October 7 and Hamas.

Al Thani subsequently issued a public response attacking her critics and Israeli messaging, but she did not deny writing the posts highlighted by Fischberger, claim that they had been fabricated, or offer a point by point explanation of the statements.

The controversy comes as Al Thani is appearing at prominent international policy events. She is a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and a QatarDebate Youth Envoy. Concordia also lists her as a researcher in international politics, diplomacy and security.

“Hamas gave their hostages better medical attention”

One of the posts preserved by Fischberger was published by Al Thani’s @3nnadi account on October 24, 2023.

It stated:

“Hamas gave their hostages better medical attention than the US gives their entire population. I’ve seen everything.”

The post referred to the release of 85 year old Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, who had been abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7 attack.

Lifshitz had described receiving medical attention after being taken into Gaza. She said that a doctor visited the group of hostages every other day, that medication was supplied and that wounded captives received treatment.

But those comments were only part of her account.

Her press conference began with the words:

“I’ve been through hell.”

Lifshitz said armed men stormed Nir Oz, beat residents and kidnapped people regardless of age. She described being thrown across a motorcycle and taken into Gaza while being struck along the way, causing pain and difficulty breathing.

She was then taken through what she described as a “spider’s web” of damp underground tunnels before reaching the location where she was held.

Only after describing the violent abduction did Lifshitz explain that conditions during the later stage of captivity included food, medication, medical visits and efforts to prevent illness.

Al Thani’s post therefore focused on the favorable portion of Lifshitz’s description of medical treatment while leaving out the same hostage’s account of being kidnapped from her home, assaulted on the journey into Gaza and held underground.

A proposed database of sheikhs who condemned Hamas

Four days later, on October 28, Al Thani published another post concerning criticism of Hamas.

The original Arabic post is no longer publicly retrievable, but Fischberger preserved the X generated English translation before the post became unavailable.

According to that translation, Al Thani called for collecting the names of religious sheikhs who had said Hamas was wrong or who had declared boycotts or protests religiously forbidden.

The translated post proposed putting those names into an easily accessible database so people would know who they were and would no longer “take from” them.

The surviving wording appears to refer specifically to sheikhs or religious authorities rather than every person who criticized Hamas.

The word displayed as “traitor” also comes from X’s automated translation. Because the original Arabic text has not been recovered, the precise Arabic term and the exact nuance of that translation cannot currently be checked independently.

What is clear from the preserved post is that Al Thani was proposing a searchable record of religious figures who had condemned Hamas or opposed boycott and protest campaigns, with the stated purpose of discouraging people from accepting their authority or teachings in the future.

“Hamas gave you a run for your money in four hours”

Another post highlighted by Fischberger dates to February 12, 2024.

Al Thani was responding to a post by Eddie Cohen that stated:

“We crippled four armies in six days. We can do it again.”

X’s translation of Al Thani’s Arabic response read:

“Hamas gave you a run for your money in four hours, if Lebanon went at it alone, it’d thrash you in 4 minutes, just like it did before 😉”

The wording was a taunt about Israel’s military performance against Hamas during the opening hours of October 7, followed by a claim that Lebanon could inflict an even faster defeat.

Because only X’s translated version of the post has survived publicly, expressions such as “gave you a run for your money” and “thrash you” should be understood as the platform’s English rendering rather than a verified human translation of Al Thani’s original Arabic.

The surviving post refers to “Lebanon,” not explicitly to Hezbollah.

Another October 2023 post praised a boycott related “corporate” victory

One additional post from Al Thani’s account can be independently traced through a contemporaneous media embed.

On October 14, 2023, as McDonald’s franchises across several Arab states announced donations to Gaza and expressed support for Palestinians following criticism of McDonald’s Israel for providing meals to Israeli soldiers and security personnel, Al Thani described the development as an “unprecedented win on the corporate front.”

The New Arab embedded her original @3nnadi post in an October 16 report, preserving its post ID even though the original is no longer publicly retrievable.

Fischberger publishes the posts and the account goes private

The sequence on September 23 unfolded quickly.

At approximately 2:21 p.m. Israel time, Fischberger published the older material from Al Thani’s account and criticized both the content of the posts and her presence in New York during UNGA week.

Fischberger is an Israel based writer and OSINT investigator whose work has appeared in outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Hill and the Jerusalem Post. JNS describes him as a Middle East analyst.

Several hours after his initial post, Fischberger documented that @3nnadi had been switched to protected mode.

On X, protecting an account makes its posts visible only to approved followers and removes them from public X search. Previously public posts also cease to be publicly accessible while the protection setting remains active.

Later that evening, Al Thani’s account became public again.

Fischberger said that she had blocked him and that posts attacking the United States or celebrating October 7 had been deleted.

He ended his update:

“Sorry Alanoud, but the internet is forever.”

The exact number of posts removed cannot currently be established. The original X URLs for the three posts about the hostages, the database of sheikhs and the Hamas and Lebanon comparison have not been recovered, so it is not possible to reconstruct precisely when each became unavailable.

What can be established is the sequence: Fischberger publicly exposed the old posts, Al Thani’s account was subsequently placed into protected mode, and the account returned to public view later that same day. Fischberger then publicly alleged that posts had been deleted.

The posts he had already preserved remained available through his exposé.

Al Thani responds, but does not deny the posts

At approximately 9:08 p.m. Israel time, Al Thani published a response from her own account.

She opened by saying:

“Let me be clear, this tweet is not a response to OP.”

She went on to say that she disliked “dignifying zionists with a response” and attacked what she described as the deterioration of Israeli public relations strategy.

Al Thani argued that the criticism was an attempt to undermine a video in which she had spoken about ending conflict and bloodshed in the region. She accused her critics of serving what she characterized as one of the most immoral and bloody states in modern history and presented herself as advocating regional peace.

Her response did not address the older posts individually.

She did not deny writing the hostage treatment post.

She did not deny proposing the database of religious figures who condemned Hamas.

She did not deny the February 2024 statement comparing Hamas and Lebanon’s military performance against Israel.

She did not claim Fischberger had fabricated the material.

And she did not address his allegation that posts had been removed from her account.

Instead, her response focused on the motives and political messaging of her critics.

Who is Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani?

Al Thani currently serves as a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. The organization publicly lists her full name as Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani.

Her connection to the @3nnadi account is not merely based on Fischberger’s identification. The Middle East Council itself has publicly linked the account to Sheikha Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani.

Concordia describes her as a researcher specializing in international politics, diplomacy and security and says she holds an Executive Master of Science in Diplomacy and International Affairs as well as a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

She also has a longstanding connection to QatarDebate.

QatarDebate records show that she competed for Qatar internationally and later trained the country’s national debate team. Its current affiliates page lists Alanoud Al Thani as a Youth Envoy.

Appearing at a major New York summit during UNGA week

Al Thani’s older posts resurfaced while she was participating in international events in New York during the 2026 UN General Assembly period.

At the Concordia Annual Summit, an event held in New York alongside UNGA, she participated in a session titled “Autonomy, Intelligence, and the Future of Defense.”

The panel included retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, journalist Josh Rogin and national security technology executive Dan Smoot. The session focused on artificial intelligence, autonomous military technologies, accountability, escalation and ethical oversight.

Concordia explicitly describes its Annual Summit as being held alongside the United Nations General Assembly. It is a separate event, not a session of the General Assembly itself.

Al Thani also published a video from New York describing herself as speaking “Live from UNGA.”

An Al Jazeera graphic shown during her appearance identified her as a member of Qatar’s “academic delegation to UNGA.”

However, publicly available records reviewed for this article do not establish that she was an accredited member of Qatar’s official UN delegation. Her presence in New York and her participation in events surrounding UNGA week are documented, but those facts should not be conflated with formal membership in Qatar’s official General Assembly delegation.

Al Jazeera appears to have mixed up two different Alanoud Al Thanis

The Al Jazeera graphic also contained another striking detail.

It identified Al Thani as having been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2021.

Official World Economic Forum records indicate that distinction belongs to a different Qatari woman.

The WEF’s 2021 Young Global Leaders list identifies Alanoud Bint Hamad Al Thani, then Managing Director of the Qatar Financial Centre Authority, as the Qatari member of that year’s class.

The World Economic Forum’s current biography for Alanoud Bint Hamad Al Thani describes a career in business, finance and investment and notes education at institutions including the London School of Economics, Oxford, Harvard Kennedy School and HEC Paris.

Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani, by contrast, is described by Concordia and the Middle East Council as a diplomacy and security researcher, Georgetown graduate, former competitive debater and QatarDebate figure.

The different full names, educational histories and professional careers strongly indicate that these are two separate women.

The available evidence therefore points to an apparent biographical mix up in the Al Jazeera graphic, which seems to have attributed the World Economic Forum credential of Alanoud Bint Hamad Al Thani to Alanoud Hamad Saud Al Thani.

Earlier scrutiny of Al Thani’s public statements

The September controversy was not the first time Al Thani’s social media activity had attracted attention.

In April 2026, CAMERA, a pro Israel media monitoring organization, published an article examining her public profile and previous statements after she appeared in international media as a Middle East Council fellow.

CAMERA reproduced a March 2026 post in which Al Thani described Israel as “the most evil nation and the root cause,” among other material. It also argued that television networks had provided audiences with an incomplete description of her background.

CAMERA’s political interpretation should be distinguished from the underlying material it reproduced, but several basic elements of its identification of Al Thani, including her Middle East Council position and ownership of the @3nnadi account, are independently supported by institutional sources.

Why the old posts matter now

The issue is not simply that a public figure expressed controversial views years ago.

Al Thani currently appears in international media and policy forums as an analyst of diplomacy, security and Middle Eastern affairs. She participated this week in a defense and artificial intelligence discussion alongside a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

That makes her own previous public statements concerning Hamas and October 7 relevant context.

The posts show that shortly after October 7 she used Yocheved Lifshitz’s description of medical care in captivity to make a favorable comparison between Hamas and the United States, without including Lifshitz’s account of violent abduction and assault.

Days later, she proposed a database of religious figures who condemned Hamas or opposed boycott and protest campaigns.

Months later, she used Hamas’s actions on October 7 to taunt Israel over its military performance.

When Fischberger resurfaced those posts during UNGA week, her account soon became protected. It later reopened, and Fischberger alleged that posts had been deleted.

Al Thani responded publicly to the controversy, but she did not deny authorship of the posts or claim the preserved material was fabricated.

The episode also exposed a separate problem in how she was presented to viewers: Al Jazeera appears to have credited her with a World Economic Forum distinction that official records award to another Qatari woman with a similar name.

Taken together, the record provides context that audiences would not receive from a title such as “fellow,” “researcher” or “academic delegate” alone. It also illustrates why a public figure’s own past statements can be relevant when that person is later presented as an expert on the same region, conflicts and political actors those statements concerned.