Hamas officials routinely bullied and intimidated employees of U.S.-funded NGOs operating in Gaza in order to control their operations, according to a confidential probe by American investigators that was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The probe reveals that Hamas threatened to sic its fearsome police force on aid workers and even tried to access the NGOs' private employee data as the terror group moved to establish outposts at hospitals and redirect aid to meet its needs.
The June investigatory report by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) inspector general's office, an independent law enforcement entity separate from the largely defunct USAID, provides definitive proof that Hamas is interfering in aid operations and threatening workers on the ground. In one case, Hamas Ministry of Interior personnel "attempted to obtain employee data" from a U.S.-funded NGO and, in another, ordered a humanitarian group "to provide material support to some specific families that they had identified." In the second case, Hamas officials warned that failure to comply with their order would result in "the police" shutting down the group's aid operation.
Hamas's police force is instrumental in repression—maintaining political control and crushing dissent—inside Gaza. The Free Beacon previously reported that the Hamas police installed makeshift torture chambers at Gaza hospitals.
The June 24 report, which was privately transmitted to Congress and obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon, describes a situation on the ground in Gaza that Hamas and its international allies have vehemently denied for years: Aid operations are subject to strict oversight by Hamas personnel who are often stationed at sensitive humanitarian sites, such as hospitals and aid depots. The USAID inspector general obtained clear evidence of "interference by Hamas operating as the de facto authority" during the course of its investigation into the group's activities.
The USAID inspector general, as part of this probe, instructed nine NGOs late last year to produce a list "with the dates and descriptions of attempts by Hamas to interfere with staffing or other operational decisions." It also asked the nonprofits to list all "interactions with Hamas," including with Hamas elements in the Gaza Health Ministry, which Hamas controls. Six of the nonprofits provided all of the information requested, while three made clear that they had not received U.S. funding. By contrast, the United Nations is stonewalling the same investigation into its staffers' ties to Hamas, with at least six U.N. agencies failing to provide the USAID inspector general with identical information about staffing and interactions with Hamas, the Free Beacon first reported on Thursday.
"The USAID inspector general's investigation in Gaza is helping unveil the extent to which Hamas terrorists actively coerced aid organizations to impede, coerce, and divert U.S. taxpayer-funded aid," a senior State Department official briefed on the investigation told the Free Beacon, noting that this is the first federal probe of its nature. "Quite a contrast from the international community's dismissive insistence that Hamas was never, ever, at fault."
Hamas has been repeatedly caught meddling in aid operations and diverting humanitarian supplies to its militant wing. The USAID inspector general, in December 2025, warned "federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and U.N. agencies of the risk of aid being diverted to Hamas and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations." The notice included "credible allegations of Hamas interference, diversion, and theft of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as allegations of smuggling contraband into Gaza through humanitarian aid shipments." In other documented cases, Hamas operatives infiltrated dozens of U.S. and U.N.-affiliated aid groups in Gaza, embedding personnel into senior positions to direct humanitarian operations on the ground and ensure the groups served Hamas's interests, according to internal security documents published last year by the Free Beacon.
While none of the six NGOs included in the inspector general's most recent June probe—Mercy Corps, International Medical Corps (IMC), Save the Children Federation, Action Against Hunger (AAH), Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), and Project Hope—reported any "involvement with or interference by the militant wing of Hamas," they admitted to being pressured by the group's Gaza government to provide information on their staff and permit potentially Hamas-linked Gazans to patrol their aid sites. There is little distinction between Gaza's Hamas-controlled government and its armed wing, which both work in tandem to enforce a strict police state that includes interference in aid operations. The humanitarian groups themselves are not suspected of any wrongdoing by the inspector general, which was focused primarily on Hamas's activities.
"Concerns about Hamas exploiting humanitarian aid sent to Gaza go far beyond" the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the terror-tied aid organization that is at the center of the USAID inspector general's investigation, the senior State Department official said. "The 'see no evil, hear no evil' posture in avoiding holding Hamas responsible for widespread theft, diversion, and interference of aid delivery in Gaza must end. The facts speak for themselves, even if inconvenient for some."
IMC, for instance, reported that in January 2024 the Hamas Ministry of Interior asked it to "allocate a dedicated booth or tent so Gazan personnel could always be present at a field hospital in Meraj," a rural area in southern Gaza. Hamas is known to take a particular interest in hospitals and medical facilities, where they station their operatives, maintain underground command centers, and even conduct violent interrogations on Gaza civilians in their torture chamber, the Free Beacon exclusively reported in June.
By August 2024, the Hamas Ministry of Interior instructed IMC "to suspend activities until it received approval" from the Gaza government, a tactic the terror group has repeatedly employed to gain greater leverage over aid groups and intimidate them into compliance. The same month, IMC was told to "register all expatriate medical staff and share license information and professional details for all national healthcare workers" operating in Gaza.
While the Hamas Ministry of Interior ultimately waived this request, it stipulated to IMC that "national medical staff in Gaza were only allowed to work in non-ministry health facilities for up to 24 hours per week," essentially limiting the time Gazan staff could spend outside Hamas-controlled institutions.
Project Hope, meanwhile, reported in January 2025 that "two unarmed individuals" with the Hamas Ministry of Interior credentials "attempted to obtain employee data," but were told by the aid group that this information cannot be shared. The USAID inspector general's report does not say whether Hamas retaliated against Project Hope, but details other instances in which the terror group threatened to shutter aid operations or dispatch its police force for noncompliance.
ACTED—a Paris-based group that has run humanitarian projects in Gaza since at least 2007—reported that on at least two occasions in 2025 "an individual claiming to be part of the [Hamas] 'Ministry of Social Development'" contacted the organization to obtain a copy of its beneficiaries list detailing where aid is delivered.
"The individual also asked ACTED to provide material support to some specific families that they had identified," according to the USAID inspector general report. "In April 2025, the individual again contacted multiple ACTED staff, stating that if the company did not provide the requested information, the police would stop ACTED's ongoing work."
ACTED additionally reported that the Hamas Ministry of Economy requested to "inspect a warehouse containing aid commodities" in November 2025 and, in the same month, stopped two of its employees to demand information about the organization. Hamas organs continued pressuring the group through January 2026, when the Ministry of Interior's Institutional Investigations Unit demanded information about ACTED's Gaza programs.
The encounters disclosed by ACTED and the other Gaza aid groups that spoke to the inspector general paint a vastly different picture of Hamas's activities than those disseminated by the international community, which has repeatedly claimed that Israel is the party responsible for blocking aid to needy Gazans.
The USAID inspector general unearthed evidence in August 2025 that Hamas "commandeered U.N. aid trucks," embedded terrorist operatives in "U.N. agencies or at U.N. facilities," and ensured humanitarian goods were "directly delivered to Hamas officials," the Free Beacon first reported at the time. The Gaza operations manager of the U.S.-funded World Vision charity, Mohammed el Halabi, was convicted by an Israeli court in 2022 of diverting tens of millions of dollars in aid to Hamas's armed wing.
UNRWA, however, claimed as recently as July 2025 that it "received no specific allegations regarding any diversion of humanitarian aid it distributes in the Gaza Strip by Hamas or other armed groups." UNRWA's former commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, claimed in a July 2025 X post that there is "no proof of aid diversion in Gaza" and that such claims "were only aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the humanitarian community." A spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Fox News in September 2025, "we do not have evidence of systematic aid diversion from the U.N. to Hamas."
Hamas's own internal security documents offer further proof that the terror group kept close tabs on dozens of NGOs working in Gaza, tracking which officials were friendly to the terror group and who was "affiliated with the Hamas movement." The U.S.-registered Catholic Relief Services, for instance, hired a Gaza director whom Hamas identified as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The U.N. only acknowledged the problem publicly in July of this year, when its deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Ramiz Alakbarov, admitted in the face of mounting evidence that the terror group is "targeting and abusing humanitarian operations" in a systematic fashion.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who has been tracking the issue as chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, told the Free Beacon that while allegations around Hamas's interference with aid operations have been swirling for years, "these newly reported [USAID inspector general] documents prove it."
"Terrorists routinely harassed aid organizations that receive American taxpayer dollars," Grassley said. "The documents raise serious concerns about the United Nations' failure to admit interference from Hamas and even more questions about where American aid is ending up." Congress, the senator added, "should follow up on this new information to ensure taxpayer dollars are not the victim of waste, fraud and abuse."
The senior State Department official who spoke to the Free Beacon reached a similar conclusion, saying that the overwhelming evidence compiled by the USAID inspector general provides proof that "Hamas is not the innocent, angelic bystander that many in the international community would have us believe." Rather, the source said, "the facts in the USAID IG's investigation reveal Hamas' systemic attempts to thwart, divert, and obstruct aid intended for those in need."
Those claims are supported by documents from Hamas's own interior ministry. NGO Monitor, an international watchdog group, published a series of internal Hamas documents showing that the terror group considers hospitals and other civilian sites to be a key node in its terror infrastructure. This comports with evidence produced by Israel showing that hospitals, schools, aid depots, and other civilian strongholds are routinely exploited by Hamas.
A second U.S. official involved with the Board of Peace, a Trump-created international organization established to oversee Gaza's reconstruction, said it is abundantly clear that "NGOs operating in Gaza have been exploited as instruments of the Hamas terrorist organization" and that "some of them have even been complicit and let this happen."
"The Board of Peace will not tolerate this model of service delivery under its mandate," the official added. "The people of Gaza deserve humanitarian assistance that is transparent, accountable, and free from terrorist influence. We must, and will, do better for them."
A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that it wholly rejects "Hamas's shameful use of civilian organizations to generate illicit financial support for its military wing." The spokesman said that every U.S. dollar is "subject to various oversight measures including counterterrorism vetting, monitoring, and oversight procedures to prevent" diversion to Hamas and other terror groups.