International donors are complicit in Hamas’ presence in Gaza – and key to its demise

In late August the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precision airstrike on gunmen who had sought to hijack an aid convoy. The IDF said it had targeted a vehicle in a convoy that was full of armed men. Initial reports portrayed the men as civilians, with claims the Israeli strike had killed “four Palestinians leading an aid convoy”.This type of framing of the conflict, and the way in which Hamas systematically seeks to exploit civilian institutions and humanitarian aid to cling to power in Gaza, is one of the reasons it is so difficult to uproot the terror organisation.

Hamas has exploited United Nations facilities, non-governmental organisations and civilian institutions in Gaza for decades. It is part of the DNA of Hamas to use every civilian site in Gaza for its own purposes. It built hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath civilian areas in Gaza, for instance. After Hamas launched its October 7 massacre, it sought to hide in Gaza by using civilian institutions, such as schools, universities and hospitals.

Hundreds of Hamas members were, for instance, found by the IDF hiding in al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza in March. In July the IDF found weapons and a Hamas command centre in an Unrwa facility. In recent weeks the IDF has released numerous statements saying it has carried out precision strikes on Hamas command and control centres which the terrorist group illegally situated inside schools in Gaza.

It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees when reading these reports. Hamas wants headlines such as “Israeli airstrike on school” or “Israel raids hospital” because Hamas knows that the information appears to be on its side in a conflict that is as much about information warfare as it is about Hamas gunmen hiding out. When Hamas moves its gunmen – dressed as civilians – into a school where people are sheltering, it knows that it is hard for the local civilian authorities to get Hamas to leave. Throughout the war in Gaza, the United Nations and various NGOs that operate in Gaza have proved unwilling to report on the Hamas presence in their institutions or on their aid convoys.

The international community prefers a code of silence when it comes to Hamas in Gaza. Instead of condemning it for entering schools or reporting and monitoring on this phenomenon, most NGOs and the UN prefer either not to mention Hamas or to condemn, in general, “armed groups” for operating in civilian institutions in Gaza. This terminology is deliberate. Not naming Hamas means that organisations don’t have to work to separate their local staff from Hamas. Not naming Hamas means they don’t have to have guidelines as part of their work not to include members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad in their roster of local employees, volunteers or the gunmen who “protect” aid convoys.

It’s important to understand here how deeply Hamas has infiltrated all facets of life in Gaza. It infiltrates media and also healthcare workers. It exploits schools, universities, shelters and hospitals. For Hamas, all these NGOs and UN organisations are targets to be exploited, and each large civilian building is a potential hideout. Hamas conducts itself both as a terrorist group and a kind of mafia in this respect. The armed men that it sends to hijack aid convoys, for example, pretend to be there for “protection”. This is the kind of protection that the mafia also offers in other settings. It’s how cartels operate. Separating the civilians from the mafia-cartel aspect of Hamas is key to uprooting Hamas.

Gaza’s misfortune is to have an international community that has worked in Gaza for decades and been unwilling to confront Hamas. The NGOs and other groups that work there want to get their aid to local people. They see working with Hamas as a lesser evil than the aid not being delivered. They aren’t willing to condemn Hamas or monitor their aid convoys for the presence of gunmen, because it’s easier to look the other way and just let a system that is in place continue. As long as they can say aid came across the border, they can say it was delivered, even if it never reaches the people in Gaza and even if Hamas and armed gangs take the aid and sell it, fuelling the Hamas war machine. To separate Hamas from local people in Gaza, donor countries should mandate that any NGO or UN organisation working in Gaza must monitor and report on Hamas and other groups’ presence in institutions that receive funding. It’s not enough to call on “armed groups” not to enter schools. Monitoring Hamas, as the ruling power, is needed.

This can be done. Schools can set up CCTV cameras and they can provide transparent lists of who enters and exits the school. Convoys can track where aid goes and make sure it is not stolen. UN institutions are strong enough to have a special rapporteur tasked specifically with reporting on Hamas’s presence. Hospitals can monitor each floor and each room in their facility.

This can also be done by shifting the way organisations operate in Gaza. Rather than pretending Hamas doesn’t exist and calling it an “armed group” it should be named and monitored. NGOs and UN organisations know how to do this in other conflicts. They know how to keep armed men out of their facilities or report the presence of armed men in places such as eastern Congo. If the UN and NGOs can report armed men entering schools or hospitals or taking over aid in other places in the world, they can do it in Gaza.

Separating Hamas from civilians in Gaza and ending the exploitation and use of civilians as human shields is key to defeating Hamas. This starts at the level of donor countries who back the UN and NGO efforts in Gaza. They can mandate reporting on Hamas presence. After October 7 it is imperative that a paradigm shift takes place in how the international community relates to Gaza. The international community can also work toward a day without Hamas, and a day when Gazan children can attend school without Hamas men illegally occupying their classrooms.

Seth J. Frantzman is the senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Post, an adjunct Fellow at The Foundation for Defence of Democracies and author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024)