While both the US and Israel frequently claim Hamas has stolen massive amounts of aid supplies that have entered Gaza, neither government has evidence to back up the assertion, according to reports from The New York Times and Reuters.
Reuters reported on Friday that an internal US government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas of US-funded aid supplies that have entered Gaza. The analysis was conducted by a bureau within the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and completed at the end of June.
The analysis examined 156 incidents of theft or loss of US-funded supplies and found “no reports alleging Hamas” benefited from the aid. The report also cited a source familiar with US intelligence assessments who said they knew of no US intelligence reports detailing Hamas aid diversions and that Washington was relying on Israeli reports.
The New York Times report, which was published on Saturday, cited two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter who said the Israeli military never found proof that Hamas had systematically stolen aid from the UN. The Israeli military officials also said that the UN aid system had been largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population.
Israel has used the unfounded claims to undermine the UN food system in Gaza and set up the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has set up aid distribution sites manned by US security contractors that have turned into death traps for desperate Palestinians seeking food. Since the GHF began operating at the end of May, more than 1,000 Palestinian aid seekers have been killed, the majority near GHF sites.
While accusing Hamas of stealing aid, Israel has armed an ISIS-linked gang led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a criminal who admitted in an interview with The Washington Post last year that his group was looting aid trucks.
Israel also used the claims of Hamas aid diversions to justify the total blockade that it imposed on Gaza in March, which violated the January ceasefire deal. That blockade was only eased slightly when the GHF sites were established, and a trickle of aid trucks was allowed to enter Gaza in May.
Now that Palestinians are starving to death inside Gaza each day, international pressure is growing on Israel for a real end to the Israeli blockade and for a ceasefire in Gaza. But the US continues to strongly back Israel despite the mass starvation.
