Over the course of the war, the Israeli military released records and videos purporting to show how Hamas has been exploiting humanitarian aid. The army also shared what it described as internal Hamas documents found in a headquarters in Gaza, which discuss the percentage of aid taken by various Hamas wings and dated to early 2024. But those documents do not specifically refer to the theft of U.N. aid.
Israel has long had tense relations with the United Nations, which spilled over into open hostility during the Gaza war. Israel accuses the organization of bias and says that it was infiltrated by Hamas, including claims that U.N. staff took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that started the war.
Israel has accused the United Nations of failing to collect truckloads of aid sitting idle near a border crossing into northern Gaza.
The United Nations, in turn, says the Israeli military has not provided enough secure routes to send those trucks in. It accuses Israel of destroying Gaza and blocking critical aid.
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Since the outbreak of the war, Hamas has seen humanitarian aid as an opportunity and has defined itself as responsible for providing aid in large parts of the Gaza Strip, while taking advantage of international aid organizations. Thus, during the war, Hamas terrorists joined aid trucks covertly or openly, with the aim of boycotting and taking control of the aid entering the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has stated throughout the war that varying amounts (between 15% and more than 25%) of the humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip will be automatically diverted to the terrorist organization and its needs. The aid allocated to the terrorist organization was transferred to terrorists in the field or sold at high prices in order to extract profit at the expense of the residents of the Gaza Strip. A document that has now been revealed proves that decisions were made on this issue during the war, in particular changing the percentage of allocation to Hamas in accordance with the assessment of the situation in Hamas.
Hamas has been working to smuggle certain products into the Gaza Strip, such as cigarettes, and has attempted to boycott them in order to sell them at exorbitant prices while prohibiting independent traders in the markets from selling them. In addition, Hamas itself smuggles the same products into the Strip and sells them to traders at exorbitant prices. In light of this, as part of the humanitarian aid program, cigarettes were not allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through the crossings. Throughout the war, security inspectors from the Ministry of Defense's Crossings Authority thwarted dozens of attempts to smuggle tobacco products.
According to IDF estimates, Hamas in the Gaza Strip received hundreds of millions of shekels from Iran and other funding sources through an offset mechanism that goes through Hamas elements residing in Turkey, in cooperation with senior Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip. Hamas acted to exploit the process of bringing in humanitarian aid and international aid organizations, whether by mistake or with knowledge. Thus, demands were raised on the ground to bring in "excess" aid purchased with Hamas money "from abroad" into the Gaza Strip. Hamas then sold the aid it brought in at exorbitant prices to the residents of Gaza, thus receiving cash in its hands.
IDF link
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