
Hamas facing financial and administrative crisis as revenue dries up
With its coffers depleted, Hamas's military wing can no longer adequately pay the salaries of its fighters, though it is still able to recruit teenage boys for missions like keeping lookout or placing explosives along Israeli military routes, according to Oded Ailam, who is a former high-level Israeli intelligence officer, and current Israel Defense Forces officers.
The group has also been unable to replace the well equipped tunnels and underground command centers that Israeli forces have destroyed in their bid to uproot Hamas. Before he was killed in an airstrike two months ago, Hamas military commander Mohammed Sinwar had been forced to take refuge in a one-room hideout 30 feet below a hospital in southern Gaza. The spartan bunker was a far cry from the vast underground complex that the Israeli military said it found earlier in the war farther north, which included spacious white-tiled rooms, a blast-proof door, mechanical ventilation and ample space to accommodate weapons stockpiles.
'Hamas is not rebuilding their tunnels, they're not paying their highly trained fighters, they're only surviving,' Ailam said.
Nor can the Hamas administration meet the payroll of police and ministry employees in Gaza, where the group has been the governing authority since 2007, or continue to pay death benefits to the families of fighters killed, according to Ailam, a local Palestinian policeman and two other Gazans.
Ibrahim Madhoun, a Gazan analyst close to Hamas, said that the group had not prepared for more than a year of war and has been forced to adopt austerity measures, such as cutting administrative costs and salaries, while trying to maintain some basic services — for instance, by setting up emergency committees that provide basic local services such as garbage collection and management of generator fuel — and thus some semblance of governing authority.
To pick up some of the slack, Madhoun said, Hamas also relies on efforts of the local community and the 'strong social network that helps absorb the shocks.'
Hamas officials did not respond to requests for comment about the group's financial health.
Hamas and Israel are currently negotiating over a possible 60-day ceasefire, with Israel seeking to ensure that it can maintain pressure on Hamas and the militant group looking for a lifeline. All sides say the talks are making progress, but an agreement remains elusive.
Earlier in the war, Hamas relied on taxes imposed on commercial shipments and the seizure of humanitarian goods, according to Gazans and current and former Israeli and foreign officials. According to a Gazan who has worked at the border, plainclothes Hamas personnel routinely took inventory of goods at the Rafah crossing, until it closed last year, and at the Kerem Shalom crossing, though it was under IDF control. They also surveyed warehouses and markets. Most of the Palestinians interviewed for this story spoke either on the condition of anonymity or that only their first name be used, for fear of reprisal by Hamas.
The United Nations, the European Commission and major international aid organizations have said they have no evidence that Hamas has systematically stolen their aid, and the Israeli government has not provided proof.
Hamas profited 'especially off the aid that had cost them nothing but whose prices they hike up,' said a Gazan contractor who has worked at Gaza's border crossings during the war.
Over nearly two years, he said, he saw Hamas routinely collect 20,000 shekels (about $6,000) from local merchants, threatening to confiscate their trucks if they did not pay. He recalled that civil servants for the Hamas-led government said several times that they would kill him or call him a collaborator with Israel if he did not cooperate with their demands to divert aid. He said he refused. But he added that he knew at least two aid truck drivers who he said were killed by Hamas for refusing to pay.
When Israel imposed a siege on Gaza in March, shortly before breaking a two-month ceasefire with Hamas, most of those shipments came to a halt.
Hamas officials did not respond to requests for comment about accounts that it has taxed or impounded commercial shipments, stolen humanitarian aid or extorted local businessmen.
Hamas triggered the devastating war in Gaza by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 others back into Gaza as hostages. Since then, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 58,000 people, mostly women and children, Gazan health authorities say.
An Israeli military official said Hamas has lost 90 percent of its leadership and 90 percent of its weapons stockpiles over the course of the conflict. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media.
In the early phase of the war, Hamas had rushed to stash cash and supplies underground, but those have run short. In March 2024, the Israeli army said that it confiscated more than $3 million from the tunnels beneath al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, according to a statement in the IDF's WhatsApp group.
But Hamas has profited off commercial trade and humanitarian aid, netting hundreds of millions of dollars, according to two Israeli military officials and an Israeli intelligence official, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings. For instance, the officials said, Hamas seized at least 15 percent of some goods, like flour, and aid vouchers that international agencies had intended to provide to hungry Gazans. These officials said some of that was given to Hamas personnel and supporters while the rest was sold to make money.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian American who leads the advocacy group Realign for Palestine, said that Hamas repeatedly modified its strategy for profiting off aid and commerce while counting on the humanitarian crisis to bring the war to an end. 'Hamas's strategy relied on the suffering of Gazans,' said Alkhatib. 'But when this strategy failed, it foolishly doubled down on this approach, in large part because it had nothing else in its toolbox to deal with Israel's ferocious reaction to Oct. 7 and the world's inability to stop it.'
'Hamas sees aid as its most important currency,' said a man from Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, who helps manage the distribution of aid. He said that while most of the population had to scrape for water and food, people affiliated with Hamas had been gifted boxes of aid meant for wider distribution.
The IDF, citing intelligence, says the aid organizations targeted by Hamas have included U.N. agencies and NGOs. The Israeli government has used allegations of widespread Hamas theft to justify draconian restrictions on humanitarian assistance entering Gaza and to justify bombing aid depots. Some far-right members of the Israeli government have said these restrictions are useful in pressuring Hamas into making negotiating concessions and in turning Gaza's population against Hamas.
Israel has not provided public proof that Hamas has systematically stolen aid brought into Gaza under the U.N. system, and despite requests from The Washington Post to officials in the IDF, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the prime minister's office, no evidence has been provided to substantiate reports of widespread diversion of U.N. food aid. Nor has Israel privately presented proof to humanitarian organizations or Western government officials, even when they have pressed for evidence, according to interviews with more than a dozen aid officials and several current and former Western officials.
Carl Skau, deputy executive director for the U.N.'s World Food Program, one of the main providers of flour in Gaza throughout the war, said in an interview that systematic aid diversion by Hamas 'has not been an issue for us so far in the conflict.' WFP previously reported three instances of looting of its supplies during 21 months of war. 'We have mitigating measures that we have drawn lessons from over the past 40 years operating in these kinds of complex environments with armed groups,' he said. 'We are putting all those mitigating measures in place.'
Officials from several major international aid organizations have also said that there has been no systematic diversion of their aid by Hamas and that they have robust procedures for tracking aid as it enters Gaza and is distributed.
An Egyptian official briefed on intelligence, however, said that Hamas had indeed stolen some of this food aid. 'Hamas is trying to use the aid to survive. It's happening,' said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media.
Among the group's demands in negotiations with Israel over a new ceasefire deal is the reopening of Gaza's borders and the surging of humanitarian aid — partly to alleviate the severe shortage of food that has turned public opinion against Hamas, but also to revive its cash flow, said an official familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
'One of the reasons that Hamas is pushing for a return to the old system is that they have guys in all of the warehouses,' said a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the news media. The presence of employees of the Gaza government allows Hamas to regulate and monitor market activities, as well as tax or seize some of the supplies at times, said a high-level Israeli official.
Until commercial shipments into Gaza were suspended in October, Hamas taxed these imports at the border and, if traders refused, commandeered a portion of their trucks and sold their contents to Gazan merchants, according to a Gazan economic reporter. He said that before the war, 'fuel and cigarettes were the highest taxed and most profitable items for the Hamas government in Gaza,' adding that revenue data has been difficult to access.
A Gazan businessman said Hamas had imposed a tax of a least 20 percent on many goods. But the group also would take control of trucks carrying high-demand goods like flour, which could sell for up to $30 for a kilogram, and steal fuel meant for aid groups. Fuel supplies have produced high revenue for Hamas during the war, with the group both taxing and seizing fuel stored at gas stations for sale, said an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with military protocol.
In addition to taxing goods, Hamas also made money by allowing associated merchants to sell imported staples like sugar and flour at inflated prices without fear of being punished for price gouging, according to the IDF, which cited an internal Hamas document obtained by the military. The Gazan economic reporter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, confirmed that these merchants are allowed to sell goods at inflated prices. He said Hamas would at times constrain supply on the market by ordering others to withhold distribution for several days, thus forcing up prices.
When Israel resumed the war in March, Hamas saw its revenue tumble as imports and aid shipments into Gaza largely were reduced to a trickle. The establishment in May of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — a food assistance program backed by the U.S. and Israel whose operations have been overshadowed by the repeated fatal shooting of Palestinians seeking aid at its centers — has deprived Hamas of earlier revenue, the Israeli military official said.
As Hamas has come under growing military and financial pressures, it has become increasingly repressive in a bid to show it is still in control. Gazans interviewed for this story spoke of growing fear of retribution. In videos posted since this spring on social media by a Hamas-linked unit formed to dole out punishments, masked gunmen are shown beating up and shooting the legs of men accused of stealing aid.
Gazans said Hamas is also seeking to intimidate those critical of the group. Last month, for instance, Mowafeq Khdour, 31, was robbed and brutally beaten by dozens of armed Hamas men after he spoke out publicly against Hamas, his brother Mahmoud said over WhatsApp.
As Hamas adopts harsher policies, the group's popularity is falling, said Rami, a 40-year-old employee of the Hamas-run government who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used out of concern for his safety. He said the anger on Gaza's streets is markedly different from the optimism earlier in the conflict, when 'we believed we were on the brink of liberating Palestine or achieving a major victory in the war,' especially with Hamas and its allies holding about 250 people hostage.
'Israel's actions are undeniably criminal, but Hamas's poor judgment and failure to account for the war's aftermath have also contributed significantly to this disaster,' Rami said.
Balousha reported from Hamilton, Ontario. Miriam Berger and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
AOC isn't radical enough for the anti-Israel Left. It's a sinister sign of the future
'AOC funds genocide in Gaza', announced a sign posted outside the Bronx campaign office of progressive New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In a particularly chilling gesture, the office's windows were splattered with red paint, including a splotch big enough to blot out an image of her face. An anti-Israel group called the 'Boogie Down Liberation Front' took responsibility for Monday night's act of vandalism in a message to a local journalist, stating 'The Bronx is sick and tired of people like AOC … using us as a stepping stone for their own political careers'. It added that their community 'stands with the people of Palestine and we denounce the hypocrisy of AOC who voted to fund Israel's ongoing genocide and starvation campaign in Gaza.' At immediate issue was Ocasio-Cortez's vote last Friday against an amendment to a military spending bill that would have cut millions in aid to Israel for its air defence systems. The amendment, which only six Congressmen supported, was proposed by Ocasio-Cortez's polar political opposite, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, whose apparent motivation was her belief that Israel no longer requires American taxpayer assistance due to its successful military operations earlier this year. Greene's amendment was also supported by noted anti-Israel Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Ocasio-Cortez has argued that the amendment would have done 'nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza'. She maintains that she still believes Israel is committing genocide, but that it should not be denied defensive weapons. That was not enough for some increasingly extreme factions on the Left, however, which consider approving any amount of support for Israel to be unacceptable. It should go without saying that nobody should be cheering on the vandalism of any politician's campaign office. Ocasio-Cortez's campaign has also revealed that she has received an increased number of death threats in recent days – a disturbing reminder that political violence is never far from the surface in American politics today. It also says something very concerning about where the American Left is heading that she should become a target of their vitriol. Back in 2018, she had a roaring start on the Left-wing of the Democratic Party. A one-time barmaid who claimed to speak progressive, working class truth to corporate power, regardless of party, she rode the anti-incumbency trend in the midterm elections of Donald Trump's first presidency to become the youngest woman ever to sit in the US Congress. She went on to be one of the very few American politicians so well known that her initials often supersede her name, a distinction usually reserved for presidents of the order of FDR or JFK. In office, AOC emerged as the best known member of the 'Squad', a small group of Left-wing Congresswomen whom many progressives hailed as the future of US politics. Her radical agenda made her a role model for young Democrats who distrust their party's older and more moderate leadership, and a bugbear for flustered Republicans who only made her more popular in constant media attacks. In recent years, however, AOC seems to have lost her progressive lustre, even if her politics haven't really changed. Last year, her stance on Israel caused the Democratic Socialists of America – a national progressive organisation that had backed her since her first standing for office – to withdraw its endorsement, accusing her of 'deep betrayal'. AOC clearly retains substantial popularity among Democrats – at over $15 million, her campaign contributions in 2025 exceed those of all other members of Congress this year as she considers greater ambitions, possibly including a primary challenge to fellow Democrat Chuck Schumer for his New York Senate seat. Some 72 per cent of those funds came from outside her congressional district. But the vandalism at her office – alongside other trends, like the emergence of Zohran Mamdani as the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City – suggests that the Left is beginning to turn in a far more sinister direction. Paul du Quenoy is a historian and president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.


Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Houthis Vow to Step Up Shipping Attacks to Press Israel on Gaza
Houthi militants pledged to target ships of any company that deals with Israeli ports, escalating their military operations in a bid to increase pressure on Israel to further ease restrictions on the hunger-ravaged Gaza Strip. The targeted ships will be attacked 'in any location within the reach of our armed forces,' a spokesman for the Iranian-backed group, Yahya Saree, said in televised comments. 'All our military operations will be ceased immediately upon the cessation of aggression against Gaza and the lifting of the blockade.'


CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Swirling Crises Follow Trump to Scotland on Pivotal Week - Inside Politics with Dana Bash and Manu Raju - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
Swirling Crises Follow Trump to Scotland on Pivotal Week CNN Inside Politics 40 mins First: In the rough. As President Trump tees off overseas, he faces urgent questions about a major tariff deadline and deepening starvation in Gaza. Will he make any progress? Plus: No end in sight. As Trump tries to put miles between him and the Epstein saga, could a new tactic by his team backfire? A conservative congressman who's pushing for more information, Eric Burlison joins me live. And: Shake-up. A big win for Democrats as they try to take back Congress. Can they overcome the odds?