Hamas
Funding Sources Drying Up
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
November 14, 2016
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Hamas in Gaza is
facing an acute financial crisis as its overseas cash sources dry up. This
is forcing the Islamist regime and its armed terrorist wing, the Izzadin
Al-Qassam Brigades, to resort to increasingly desperate measures, such as
using international aid organizations to funnel cash away from Gazan
civilians.
Hamas's dire financial situation has multiple causes. Egypt has
effectively blocked off many smuggling tunnels linking Gaza to Sinai, which
previously were used to transfer money into Gaza from Hamas donors.
Additionally, Hamas finds itself without a clear international backer
these days. Not only is Egypt under the rule of President Sisi decidedly
hostile, but relations between Hamas are Iran are unstable, rising and
falling periodically due to disagreement over conflict raging in Syria.
Iran provides Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad with military support
through its own generals, and thousands of assistance fighters from its
Lebanese terror proxy Hizballah. Palestinians generally oppose the Assad
regime.
Nevertheless, Iran sometimes does try to smuggle money to Hamas, but
this source of funding is unreliable.
Qatar's financial aid to Gaza has, since the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, and
is limited to civilian reconstruction programs. Here, too, Hamas has gotten
involved, seized apartment buildings to use as financial assets.
Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told the Israeli Knesset's
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee late last month that sources of
outside funding for Hamas are drying up.
Recent revelations by Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin
Bet, confirm this situation.
In August, the Shin Bet revealed that Hamas had been targeting international
aid organization operating in Gaza, rerouting money intended for
humanitarian assistance towards preparations for war with Israel.
For example, Hamas stole 60 percent of the annual budget of the World
Vision international air organization, stealing 7.2 million dollars a year
from it, according to the Shin Bet. Money intended to feed and help Gazan
children instead went towards purchasing weapons, building bases, and
digging attack tunnels.
The theft went as far as taking thousands of food packages intended for
Gazan civilians and sending them to armed members of Hamas territorial
battalions, according to the Shin Bet investigation.
World Vision responded by firing 120 Gaza employees.
Also in August, Israel charged an engineer from Gaza with exploiting his
position in the United Nations Development Program, which rebuilds damaged
residential buildings, for rerouting 300 tons of construction material to
help build a Hamas naval terrorist base.
On Nov. 1, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) exposed a Hamas plan to
smuggle money to its operatives in Israeli prisons, and to its West Bank
terror cells, by forcing Palestinians who have travel papers allowing them
into Israel to act as cash smugglers.
Two Hamas operatives targeted Gazan civilians at a border crossing on
their way to Israel for business or medical treatment, said the IDF's
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj.-Gen.
Yoav Mordechai.
In July, the Shin Bet arrested two Gazans with tens of thousands of
dollars hidden in their shoes. They were under Hamas orders to transfer the
cash to operatives in the West Bank to fund terrorist attacks. Hamas
intelligence agents had been approaching Gazan civilians systematically for
money smuggling purposes, Shin Bet said.
Hamas's financial situation is part of a larger ticking bomb that is the
Gazan economy. "The whole of the Gaza Strip is in economic-civilian
distress," Liberman told Knesset.
Noting that 95 percent of Gaza's civilian economic funding come from the
international community, Liberman said Israel faced a structural tension
between its wish to improve the living conditions of ordinary Gazans and
the attempts by Hamas to exploit Israel's humanitarian steps. Hamas has
stolen construction material, injected into Gaza by Israel for civilian
reconstruction, to build itself up militarily, Liberman said.
According to Liberman, as part of its bid to keep money from the
international community pouring into Gaza's economy, Hamas also refuses to
resolve crises. For example, it did not take link up Gaza's purification
plant, paid for by the World Bank (and costing $100 million), to the
electric grid, despite the fact that Israel approved a unique electrical
supply to it, Liberman added.
Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of Gaza's water is unfit for
consumption, and it will take at least two years for the international
community to set up desalination plants on Gaza's coastline. A water crisis
will likely strike Gaza long before that, Liberman said. Israel is
formulating a water crisis response policy.
The warning signs from Gaza's economic situation continue to mount,
driven by Hamas's insistence of using the enclave as a fortress of jihadist
hostility towards Israel and ignoring its peoples' basic needs.
Hamas's 26,000 armed members, and 40,000 government employees receive
their salaries, and the regime is building up its armed forces despite the
cash shortages. Ordinary Gazans, on the other hand, are on their own.
Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He
also conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks, and is
the Israel correspondent for IHS Jane's Defense Weekly. His book, The
Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence.
Related Topics: Yaakov
Lappin, Hamas,
terror
financing, Izzadin
Al-Qassam Brigades, Avigdor
Liberman, Gaza
economy, smuggling,
World
Vision, aid
abuse, United
Nations Development Program, Yoav
Mordechai
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