The publication by NGO Monitor on Sunday of a document by the UK government outlining a plan to fund and partner with organizations that deliver humanitarian aid “in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” underscores an alarming possible implication of international aid to Palestinians: That governments know that the money may also be inadvertently going to terrorist activity.
The November 2022 document, titled “Occupied Palestinian Territories/Humanitarian – UK Humanitarian Support in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (FY 2022-2026),” outlines the plan to funnel aid to humanitarian organizations and local partners, including those nestled under the UN, to improve Palestinians’ living conditions. This generally applies to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, provides humanitarian and development aid to children across the globe. A March report from the group detailed the recipients: Roughly 546,000 people overall, 81,000 families, and 285,000 children. Specifically in Gaza, the fund was able to facilitate cash assistance, easing the burden on families for essential items.
In a November 2024 update, UNICEF wrote, “This humanitarian cash transfer program in the Gaza Strip is supported by the European Union, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Norway, Canada, Sweden, Croatia, and Mauritius.”
“We categorically reject these allegations,” a spokesperson for the FCDO said.” The UK does not fund Hamas-run agencies in Gaza. The UNICEF programme is coordinated with the Ministry of Social Development in Ramallah, which is run by the Palestinian Authority. UK funding was provided through UNICEF directly to vulnerable households in Gaza. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, and funding or supporting it is a crime.”
UNICEF-administered cash assistance in Gaza
As of about two months ago, there are around 1.7 million internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Israel resumed its fighting against Hamas in the enclave about two weeks ago, as international pressure looms to stop the war and increase aid.
Inside Israel, the sentiment has grown to prioritize a diplomatic deal to release the 58 remaining hostages, as soldiers and reservists grow weary under the weight of fighting, and as little advancement is made to apply the draft to eligible ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men.
The NGO Monitor report explains that one way in which the funding works is through UNICEF-administered cash assistance in Gaza. Based out of Jerusalem, the right-wing NGO tracks the activities of international NGOs.
In order to facilitate this on the ground, UNICEF partnered with the Gaza Ministry of Social Development. “The MoSD in Gaza is affiliated with the de facto authorities and thus UK Aid can be linked directly or indirectly with supporting the de factor [sic] authority (Hamas) in Gaza which is part of a proscribed group,” reads the document.
British pounds go to UNICEF, which is then funneled to the MoSD in Gaza, “which helped ensure access to the social registry and resulted in targeting the most vulnerable families with children across the Gaza Strip right from the get-go,” reads UNICEF’s website. Families then register to one of its databases, which was set up already in summer 2023, and was coordinated with the MoSD.
Anne Herzberg, the legal adviser to NGO Monitor, said that “The issue of aid diversion is not new; it was known to all the governments and all the NGOs operating there.”
NGO Monitor noted that in April 2019, Hamas appointed Ghazi Hamad to lead the MoSD, and has “exercised effective control over the MoSD in Gaza for several years.” Hamad has led the Gaza branch of the ministry since July.
NGO Monitor further noted that Hamad was designated by the US Treasury Department as a “senior Hamas official” in November, adding that “Hamad previously served as a Hamas senior official overseeing border crossings at Gaza. While these border crossings were one of the primary ways Hamas smuggled weapons into Gaza, these crossings were also used to smuggle the construction equipment and materials Hamas needed to build an extensive tunnel network they intentionally interspersed among Palestinian civilians.”
Channel 12 noted that the MoSD leader also served as a senior military adviser, was deputy foreign minister, and was also the terrorist group’s spokesman. He also apparently negotiated on the 2011 Gilad Schalit deal.
Hamad also praised the October 7 massacre, NGO Monitor said. In an interview with Lebanese television on October 24, 2023, he said, “Israel is a state that has no place on our land. We must eliminate this state because it is truly a security, military, and political catastrophe for the Arab and Islamic nation. It must end… We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth… On October 7th, October 10th, October one-millionth, everything we do is justified.”
The document that NGO Monitor called attention to is from 2022, but its implications extend until today, as shown by the link to UNICEF. At the core of the issue is the insidious reality of aid organizations, which try to help Palestinians who need it, but are well aware of where the money is going, and are in fact contributing to a vicious cycle instead of stopping it, Herzberg explained.
She gave examples of aid in Africa or in Syria, as it dealt with ISIS. “That was the trade-off. They knew they had to pay a commission or a bribe in order to operate in a zone controlled by terrorist organizations, and they were willing to put that aside because they believed they were helping. They want to help people in need,” she said.
“But,” she added, “in their calculus, they don’t realize how allowing the aid diversion to take place” is actually harming the larger goals and ultimately worsening the situation rather than bettering it.
She elaborated, “A lot of the [international aid] actors operate in a hive mentality. They all think the same, and there aren’t enough people in their close circles pushing back about what the consequences are for operating in a zone controlled by terrorists, and [wrestling with] what that means in the long run.”
“That’s the problem,” she said: “The governments, the United Nations, the NGOs, they all think the same, and none are willing to deal with these questions – whether that’s because they are difficult to deal with, or because they have ideological motivations” preventing them from doing so.
“The end result is the same, regardless,” she explained. “These actors share responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza, and all they’ve been doing is blame Israel instead of taking responsibility.”
