Hamas terrorists (Shutterstock)
International humanitarian aid transfers to the Gaza Strip, intercepted by Hamas, earned the terror group over half a billion dollars last year, Israel says.
By World Israel News Staff
The Hamas terror organization managed to secure over half a billion dollars during 2024 by intercepting incoming humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and then selling it to the coastal enclave’s civilian population, Israel said last week.
On Friday, The New York Sun published an op-ed by Ophir Falk, the senior foreign policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, highlighting the extent of relief theft by Hamas and other terrorist-affiliated gangs in the Gaza Strip.
According to data gathered by the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), only 20% of goods brought into the Gaza Strip for distribution reaches their intended destinations and is directly transferred to civilians. Four-fifths are seized en route by Hamas and other terror groups.
Figures released by the United Nations show that roughly 85% of the aid brought in by UN-affiliated agencies, including UNRWA, has been stolen by terror groups, Falk noted in the article.
By looting incoming humanitarian aid and then selling it to Gazans at exorbitant prices, Hamas took in more than $500 million last year, Falk added, helping the terror group to continue funding its war against Israel.
A recent report by the BBC found that despite Hamas’ massive losses during the war, the damage to Gaza’s economy, and the cessation of cash transfers from Qatar, the terror group has managed to operate a secret back-channel cash payment system, providing salaries to the roughly 30,000 civil servants administering Hamas’ regime in Gaza.
Citing three Hamas employees in Gaza, the report claimed that the terror group has managed to pay its civil servants just more than 20% of their pre-war salaries.
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