Cash-strapped Hamas can’t pay fighters as Israeli offensive hits funding sources — report
Sources tell Wall Street Journal terror group used seized goods from humanitarian aid supplies to raise money, but with deliveries cut off, it is running out of resources
Palestinian terror group Hamas does not have enough cash to pay its fighters, with resources drying up as a result of Israel renewing its offensive in the Gaza Strip last month and halting humanitarian aid deliveries, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing Israeli, Arab and Western officials.
According to Arab intelligence officials, salaries to many Hamas government workers have stopped, and since last month, many senior operatives and political figures have only gotten about half their usual pay. Rank-and-file Hamas operatives have been getting only about $200-$300 a month.
Moumen Al-Natour, a Palestinian lawyer from the Al-Shati camp in central Gaza, told the Journal that Hamas has “a big crisis” on its hands.
“They were mainly dependent on humanitarian aid sold in black markets for cash,” explained Al-Natour, who has opposed the Hamas regime.
Throughout the war, Hamas had been taking aid supplies and selling them to raise money, according to Israeli, Arab, and Western officials, none of whom were named in the report.
The group charged taxes from merchants, collected customs at checkpoints, and seized goods that it then resold.
By the time a January ceasefire started, Hamas was in a crisis, but the truce brought in more aid, reviving its finances, officials said. But when the ceasefire collapsed in March, Israel halted aid deliveries and resumed its attacks on Hamas, deepening the group’s plight.
The Israeli offensive has targeted Hamas officials who were involved in distributing cash to members, while others have gone into hiding, Arab intelligence officials told the newspaper.
In addition to not being able to pay its operatives, Hamas is also struggling to get new recruits and maintain a united front among the population against Israel, with Gazans occasionally demonstrating against the group for not ending the war, the report noted.
Hamas did not respond when asked by The Journal for comment.
Israeli officials said the financial value of aid has become so important to Hamas that Israel is considering more stringent limitations on what it permits into Gaza when aid resumes. In the past, a blockade was aimed at catching goods that posed a security risk, but now Israel is mulling stopping anything that has a significant financial value to Hamas, an official told The Journal.
Western and Arab officials say Hamas has stashed away some $500 million over the years, some of it from the $15 million a month that arrived from Qatar in coordination with Israel. Much of the money is sitting in Turkey, the report said.
After the war started with Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Israel’s central bank stopped refreshing the Strip with new shekel bills, which are legal tender in the territory. Many banks and ATMs in Gaza have been destroyed. Those developments have placed further stress on Gaza civilians.
As a result, money repair shops have sprung up where Palestinians work to mend worn-out bills, the report said.
While it is not known how much cash remains in circulation in Gaza, one analyst estimated to the paper that there may be $3 billion.
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said humanitarian aid supplies would eventually resume, but only through “civilian companies,” to keep food and equipment from falling into the hands of Hamas.
He said Israel’s policy in Gaza includes “stopping humanitarian aid, which undermines Hamas’s control over the population, and creating an infrastructure for the distribution [of aid] through civilian companies later on.”
Efforts to reach another ceasefire that, like two previous truces, would include the release of hostages have so far failed to make progress. A key sticking point is Israel’s demand that it be able to continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed, while the terror group is demanding an end to the war.
The Times of Israel Community.