A central narrative in coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that Israel unfairly and illegally targets neutral and altruistic humanitarian NGOs.
Israel has long maintained that such groups have been infiltrated and manipulated by Hamas for terror objectives, with varying degrees of knowledge and willingness on the part of NGO officials.
Now, for the first time, systematic evidence is being published: dozens of internal Hamas documents detail the organization’s formal liaisons tasked with coordinating international NGO activity.
In their own internal documents, Hamas officials describe assigning points of contact with ostensibly “highly respected” international NGOs like Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council. These “guarantors,” as Hamas referred to them, were Hamas-approved senior administrators at each NGO, allowing the terror group to closely monitor NGO behaviour, influence their decision-making and circumvent bans by some Western governments’ on engaging with Hamas itself.
Furthermore, at least ten such “guarantors” who served as senior NGO officials were not just Hamas-approved, but Hamas members, supporters, or employees of Hamas-affiliated authorities. These liaisons and others, across dozens of NGOs, used their positions to generate Hamas-approved beneficiary lists for cash-assistance, utilized by the UN and aid organizations; and often engaged in outright theft.
The bottom line: NGO Monitor’s ground breaking report proves that Hamas controls all humanitarian operations in Gaza, on an institutional level and an individual one. There is no NGO freedom of operation in Gaza. And most crucially, never once did NGOs say anything about this Hamas infiltration. If anything, they issued statements blaming their inhibited operations on Israel – thus ignoring the problem and allowing Hamas to continue harming Gazans.
“This research is timely and highly consequential,” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor.
“Governments and International organizations are planning to provide billions of dollars for the rebuilding of Gaza, and will partner with numerous NGOs to reconstruct infrastructure, provide municipal services like utilities and education, and probably distribute cash payments. We now know which NGOs and their local affiliates have been propping up the Hamas terror regime.
“Our systematic research provides a central dimension as the US and its allies vet potential partners best suited to preventing a repetition of the travesty by which Hamas controlled the aid frameworks. For the Israeli government, including the IDF, this analysis highlights the importance of measures to carefully screen the involvement of the NGOs authorized to provide aid.”
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