Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the sister of Qatar’s emir, promoted a divisive exhibition at the Venice Biennale called “Gaza — No Words — See the Exhibit,” which highlights allegations that Israel deliberately targeted children in Gaza among other actions that the exhibit portrays as constituting genocide.

The Qatari royal, who chairs several of the Gulf state’s leading cultural organizations such as the Doha Film Institute and Qatar Museums, on Saturday hailed the display in an Instagram post as “a powerful exhibition, one not to miss” at Venice’s biannual international art show, which opened to the public in May and runs until Nov. 22.

The exhibition features a textile collection of 100 hand-stitched panels made by Palestinian women called the “Gaza Genocide Tapestry,” documenting what the Biennale website describes in a summary as “the ongoing destruction of Gaza” since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. 

The “cross-stitched testimony,” according to the description, “refuses to let the world forget what is being done and to whom, binding the world to what has been unfolding and to those living through it.”

In an Instagram post over the weekend, Sheikha Al Mayassa said the exhibition “powerfully captures the human atrocity,” praising the work as “cross-stitched testimonial” that conveys “the everyday struggles and stories of the people of Gaza.” 

Among the tapestries highlighted by Sheikha Al Mayassa was a textile work called “Bullets in Children,” which uses an X-ray image featured in a controversial and intensely scrutinized New York Times opinion essay, published in October 2024, featuring testimony from doctors, nurses and paramedics who claimed to have seen “multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza.”

The sheikha’s rhetoric underscores ongoing tensions between Qatar and Israel, which do not formally have diplomatic relations even as the Gulf state served as a key intermediary amid negotiations with Hamas after the Oct. 7 terror attacks that sparked the war in Gaza.

The Biennale display was organized by the Palestine Museum US in Connecticut, which says it is the first Palestinian art museum in North and South America. The museum was established in 2018 by Faisal Saleh, a curator of the exhibition who has faced controversy for labeling Israel a “terrorist” state whose treatment of Palestinians was “1,000 times” worse than Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7.

Sheikha Al Mayassa maintains a powerful bullhorn on social media, with an Instagram account reaching 1.2 million followers. Last year, the Qatari royal used her platform to boost Zohran Mamdani, a fierce critic of Israel, in his campaign for mayor of New York City.

The sheikha, who oversees Qatar’s multibillion dollar cultural strategy, has built an increasingly influential profile in the arts and entertainment world. Recently, for instance, she was photographed in New York City with the actress Salma Hayek, according to a new site covering celebrities.

Qatar, which has drawn criticism from U.S. officials for hosting Hamas political leadership and a record of human rights abuses, faced additional scrutiny on Monday when Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, lambasted the Gulf emirate and the Muslim Brotherhood for spending to influence the American education system with “propaganda campaigns” that he warned have been fueling anti-Israel sentiment in the United States. 

Qatar’s ambassador to the U.S. called Huckabee’s remarks “deeply disappointing” and disputed his allegations in a post on X.

Last week, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law urged the Justice Department in a letter to investigate whether Northwestern University is acting as a foreign agent of Qatar, claiming that the school’s ties to Doha extend beyond normal academic activity.

Sheikha Al Mayassa’s mother, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, has also frequently used her platform to spread anti-Israel messaging and praised the slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a post on X shortly after he was killed by Israeli forces operating in Gaza in October 2024. 

“The name Yahya means the one who lives,” she wrote. “They thought him dead but he lives. Like his namesake, Yahya bin Zakariya, he will live on and they will be gone.”