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Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23739770.2025.2583775#d1e97
UK Funding for Hamas-Linked Groups
(Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs) Prof. Gerald Steinberg and Anne Herzberg - Since 2007, Hamas has amassed power and resources in no small part by diverting international aid and developing an unprecedented terror infrastructure. Billions of dollars in Western taxpayer funding were funneled into Gaza ostensibly for humanitarian projects via 13 UN agencies and dozens of NGOs. Internal British and Hamas documents reveal multiple ways in which London was aware of Hamas involvement in its aid pipeline, and in some instances even cooperated with that organization. In May 2025, NGO Monitor published a detailed report, using information and documents obtained through Freedom of Information proceedings, which demonstrated that UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials were fully aware of Hamas involvement in certain Gaza cash assistance programs they funded. As of mid-2025, UK and UN databases revealed that this support was still ongoing. These programs were implemented through UNICEF in coordination with Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Social Development, which was responsible for providing the lists of aid beneficiaries for cash assistance. Hamas was able to determine just who would receive British taxpayer funds, and NGOs linked to other terrorist groups (such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) would be among those recipients. In addition, the evidence indicates that Hamas skims exorbitant sums from cash transfers in Gaza. According to Eyal Ofer, an expert on Gaza's economy, "People are getting aid via banking apps, but to turn that into real currency, they must go through brokers. They withdraw funds from these digital wallets and charge outrageous fees - anywhere between 20% and 40%. This is one of the ways Hamas is making a profit." The events of Oct. 7 and the regional war it precipitated were made possible in large part due to the diversion of billions of dollars in aid by Hamas and its pressure campaign on UN agencies, international NGOs, and foreign diplomats to facilitate the terror organization's activity and control. The detailed record discussed here demonstrates complicity, if not close cooperation, between the UK FCDO, officials of the NGOs that receive millions in taxpayer funds, and Hamas. It also shows how the humanitarian aid industry knowingly operates outside of and in contradiction to the legal conditions and requirements established by the British Parliament. In November 2021, London fully proscribed Hamas as a terror organization. Funding or supporting it is a crime. The glaring absence of oversight and due diligence in British funding enabled the potential transfer of millions of pounds to Hamas terror infrastructure and personnel under the guise of humanitarian aid. When presented with concrete evidence, British government officials have thus far chosen to deflect and deny rather than reform the way in which aid pipelines operate, to ensure they help Gazans, not Hamas. Prof. Gerald Steinberg is the president of NGO Monitor, where Anne Herzberg is the legal advisor.