A foundation established, funded and appointed by the Norwegian government held undisclosed meetings with senior Hamas officials in Gaza five years ago to examine ways to improve ties between the terror group and the European Union, according to internal Hamas documents seen by The Times of Israel.

Top officials from the Norwegian Center for Conflict Resolution, or NOREF, met on May 15, 2021, with Bassem Naim, head of Hamas’s Foreign Relations office in Gaza, and Abdullah Walid, from the same department. Naim is also a member of Hamas’s decision-making political bureau.

At the top of the agenda at the meeting, according to a July 2021 Hamas report to the terror group’s politburo, was “mediating the relationship between Hamas and the European Union” (Norway is not a member of the EU).

NOREF was represented at the meeting by its deputy head Marte Heian-Engdal and Middle East Department chief Frida Nome.

Official Palestinian documents showed that communications between NOREF and Hamas continued over the following year.

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The Hamas documents, found during the war in Gaza and declassified by the IDF, were shown to The Times of Israel by the pro-Israel watchdog NGO Monitor.

According to the Hamas summary of the May 2021 meeting, Naim told his Norwegian guests that one of Hamas’s “most important missions” was “opening channels of communication with the international community.”


Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

Nome asked, according to the Hamas report, what the existing channels of communication were between the terror group and the EU, and asked how NOREF could contribute to the dialogue.

Naim said that “there are several European countries that have communications with Hamas, and they are trying to keep these communications secret and undeclared.”

He also asserted that Hamas’s relationship with Norway “is a great and historic one, and there is mutual respect between the two peoples.”


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City, February 20, 2006. (Ahmad Khateib / Flash 90)

Naim noted that the only European official who had met with then-Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh after Hamas prevailed in 2006 Palestinian elections was Norway’s deputy foreign minister Raymond Johansen, who met the Hamas leader in 2007.

Ziad Abu Mustafa, a Gazan NOREF adviser, suggested using the “negative reality in the Palestinian territories in order to push toward changing the European position.”

Naim was one of the targets of Israel’s failed 2025 strike targeting Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar.


This frame grab taken from an AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing following an Israeli strike on the Hamas headquarters in Doha, Qatar, September 9, 2025. (PENNEY / AFPTV / AFP)

After the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Naim regularly claimed in interviews that Hamas had not killed civilians or committed any crimes.

The meeting with NOREF took place during 2021’s 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. At the time, the two terror groups fired over 4,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israel. A dozen civilians were killed in Israel during the fighting, along with one soldier. Over 250 Palestinians were killed, roughly half of whom the IDF alleged were combatants.


Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi visits a Petah Tikva building hit by Hamas rocket fire with his Czech and Slovak counterparts on May 20, 2021. (Shlomi Amsalem, Foreign Ministry)

NOREF was founded by the Norwegian government in 2008. It claims to have an independent board, but its members are appointed by Norway’s Foreign Ministry. NOREF receives state funding and supports Norwegian government peace efforts.

The organization did not deny the meetings in a statement to The Times of Israel.

“NOREF is an independent foundation funded by the Norwegian MFA, with a mandate to support conflict resolution and facilitate informal dialogue initiatives,” it said.

“Dialogue work entails contact with different conflict actors, and such contact does not imply endorsement of any actor or its positions,” NOREF continued. “As dialogue work often depends on confidentiality, NOREF does not comment on specific alleged meetings, documents or contacts.”


Yitzhak Rabin, left, chats with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres after the three received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1994 (photo credit: courtesy GPO)

Norway has had a notable role in international diplomacy surrounding efforts to achieve a two-state solution, since it facilitated the secret talks between Israel and the Palestinians that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords. It also chairs the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates development assistance to the Palestinians.

However, its stances have angered Israel in recent years. After Norway recognized a Palestinian state in 2024, Israel revoked the accreditation of the Norwegian diplomats working at Norway’s Representative Office to the Palestinians.

Norway condemned the devastating October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, but remains an outlier in Europe by not recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization.

It also voted in favor of the October 27, 2023, United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — alongside the release of Hamas-held hostages — before Israel’s ground offensive in the Strip had even begun.

Norway’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about NOREF and the meetings.

Ongoing contact

According to a Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry document from August 3, 2022, Hamas was preparing for a NOREF delegation to visit the Gaza Strip on August 18, 2022.

It said the visit was to promote an undisclosed NOREF project “primarily aimed at achieving political and social reconciliation [between Palestinian groups] as part of its regional goals.”


Supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad take part in a rally to celebrate the shooting attack in Tel Aviv, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 8, 2022. (Attia Muhammed/Flash90)

The document indicated the NOREF initiative included 30 Gazans from across the spectrum of Palestinian political groups and terrorist organizations, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The project included a series of 10 weekly calls on conflict resolution and diplomacy, including a final workshop in September of that year.

“All the programs and activities that the aforementioned is carrying out are not publicized in the media,” stressed the Palestinian Authority document.

NOREF was invited to open an office in Gaza by Naim but declined, according to the document.

Naim was named as NOREF’s main point of contact for the 2022 visit.

“Norway has long chosen to ignore the evidence, refusing to designate Hamas a terror group, unlike European and other democratic governments,” said NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald Steinberg.

“Norway’s NGO industry must belatedly join the European consensus – and cease all coordination with the terror group, private or public, direct or via intermediaries.”