Analysis by internal U.S. governments found no evidence of systemic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a challenge to U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies that challenge Israel and the United States’ main reasons for supporting new armed private aid operations.
The analysis has not been reported previously and was conducted by a bureau within the U.S. International Development Agency and was completed in late June. It examined 156 thefts reported by the U.S. Aid Partner Organization or consumables reported by the U.S. Aid Partner Organization between October and May 2023.
According to a slide show of the findings seen by Reuters, it found that “no report accusation of Hamas” benefited from U.S.-funded supplies.
A U.S. State Department spokesman objected to the findings, saying Hamas had robbed video evidence of aid, but did not provide such videos.
The spokesperson also accused the traditional humanitarian community of covering up “assistance corruption.”
White House spokesman Anna Kelly questioned the existence of the analysis, saying no State Department officials saw it and that “probably the ones who were seeking to discredit President Donald Trump’s “humanitarian agenda.”
The findings were shared with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Inspector General’s Office and State Department officials as the terrible food shortages deepened in the catastrophic enclave, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Israel said it was committed to allowing aid, but it must be controlled to prevent Hamas from stealing it, which was attributed to the crisis for the sake of the crisis.
But the New York Times reported on Saturday that the Israeli military did not prove that the raid allocation locations that Hamas had never run systematically stolen aid, citing Israeli officials who did not want to be named. The officials said the UN’s actions were actually largely effective.
Gaza health officials reported nine new Palestinian deaths in hunger, with the total reaching 122 people since Israel began attacks on the territory. Dr. Joanne Perry, the Canadian Medical Team’s doctor leader in Gaza without Borders, said the hunger situation in the region “is indeed a humanitarian disaster.”
Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani called the New York Times “fake news” on social media.
The UN World Food Program said 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face famine, thousands of acute malnutrition, and doctors in the World Health Organization and the enclave reported deaths of hunger in children and others.
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces killed more than 1,000 people seeking food supplies, a military distribution site for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new private aid group that uses a for-profit U.S. logistics company run by former CIA officials and arms U.S. military veterans.
According to a new Amnesty International report, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israel-backed group, took over the aid allocation in Gaza a month ago – using a militarized aid mechanism that allows Israel to use hunger as a weapon of war and impose genocide on genocide. Amnesty International’s Budour Hassan said ground-based people would receive aid acquisitions as “painful” efforts.
The U.S. Agency for International Development Research was conducted by its Bureau of Humanitarian Aid (BHA), the largest aid funder to Gaza, after the Trump administration froze all foreign aid in the United States in January and ended thousands of programs. It also began to demolish the United States Agency for International Development, whose functions have been folded to the State Department.
According to the briefing film, the analysis found that 44 of the stolen or lost aid supply were reportedly “direct or indirect” according to Israel’s military operations.
Israel’s army did not answer questions about these findings.
Aid organizations around the world urged the government to resume aid allocations in Gaza, warning that the risk of mass hunger was already spread throughout the region. Children’s charity coordinator Yesra Abu Sharekh describes how she worked to support her family and describes the situation as “unthinkable.”
The study points to a limitation: Since Palestinians receiving assistance cannot conduct review, the supplies we funded may have been handed over to administrative officials of Hamas, the Islamic ruler of Gaza.
A source familiar with the study also warned that the lack of reports of widespread aid transfers in Hamas “does not mean that no transfers have occurred.”
According to Israel Tales, the war in Gaza began when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages. According to Palestinian health officials, nearly 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli attack began.
Israel accuses Hamas of transferring aid
Israel, which controls access to Gaza, says Hamas steals food supplies from the United Nations and other organizations to control civilians and improve their financial situation, including by raising the prices of goods and reselling them to civilians.
Asked about the U.S. Agency for International Development’s report, the Israeli military told Reuters that its allegations were based on intelligence reports that Hamas militants captured the cargo “secretly and openly” and embed themselves in an AIDS truck.
The reports also show that Hamas has transferred up to 25% of aid supplies to combatants or sold them to civilians, the Israeli military said.
“Throughout the war, how Hamas systematically used humanitarian aid to fund terrorist activities in various ways,” Shoshani said in response to the New York Times report.
Hamas denied the charges. Hamas security officials said Israel has killed more than 800 Hamas-affiliated police and security personnel in an attempt to protect aid vehicles and convoy routes. Their mandate is coordinated with the United Nations.
Reuters was unable to independently verify Hamas and Israel’s claims, which did not publicly prove that militants had systematically stolen aid.
GHF also accused Hamas of suffering huge aid theft in defending its distribution model. The United Nations and other groups rejected the GHF, Israel and the United States’ call to work with the Foundation, saying it violates the principle of international humanitarian neutrality.
In response to a request for comment, GHF referred Reuters to a July 2 Washington Post article citing an unidentified Gaza and anonymous Israeli official who said Hamas profited from selling and levied taxes on humanitarian aid.
Aid team required to report losses
United Nations agencies and other humanitarian groups in Gaza have submitted 156 reports of theft or BHA review of supply losses as a condition for obtaining U.S. aid funds.
A second source familiar with the matter said that after receiving reports of U.S. funded aid theft or loss, U.S. Agency staff followed up with a partner organization in an attempt to determine if Hamas was involved.
The groups will also “redirect or suspend” aid allocations if they learn that Hamas is nearby, sources said. Aid organizations working in Gaza must also review their personnel, subcontractors and suppliers’ relationships with extremist groups before receiving U.S. funds, a condition that the State Department approved the $30 million U.S. GHF last month.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the U.S.-backed aid operations in Gaza were “born insecure”, accusing Gaza Humanitarian Foundation of militarized aid and forced displacement.
The slide presentation notes that U.S. Agency for International Development partners tend to overreport the transfer and theft of aid and have been approved or designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations (such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad) because they want to avoid losing our funds.
Of the 156 reported losses or thefts, 63 were attributed to unknown offenders, 35 armed actors, 25 people, unarmed, directly attributed to Israeli military operations directly to Israeli military operations, corrupt subcontractors, and five assisted group personnel “engage in corruption activities”, while six were in the “other” category, which was an unknown situation.
Armed actors “including gangs and other miscellaneous items that may have weapons,” a slide said. Another slide says: “A review of all 156 incidents found that there was no affiliation with “a US designated foreign terrorist organization”, with Hamas being one of them.
“Most events cannot be explicitly attributed to specific actors,” another slide says. “Partners often find that merchandise is stolen without identifying the perpetrator.”
Amid the ongoing chaos around distribution sites and trucks, family-run clans lifted their weapons to secure the aid convoy.
A slide says there is a possible confidential intelligence report on the Hamas aid theft, but BHA staff lost access to the confidential system in the event of demolition of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
But a source familiar with U.S. intelligence assessment told Reuters they knew there was no detailed U.S. intelligence report on the transfer of Hamas aid, and Washington relied on Israeli reports.
The BHA analysis found that the Israeli military caused 44 incidents “directly or indirectly”, in which the aid we funded was lost or stolen. These include 11 attributed to direct Israeli military operations, such as air strikes or orders to evacuate Palestinians from war-torn enclave areas.
The analysis said the losses attributed to the Israeli military included cases where they forced aid organizations to use delivery routes with high risks of theft or robbery, ignoring the requirements of alternative routes.
