ICYMI: Inside Hamas's Scheme To Steal Aid, Fund Terror, and Fool the World

The Free Beacon's Andrew Tobin reports from Gaza

In case you missed it, the Free Beacon's Andrew Tobin is out with a fresh report from Gaza. It details the tactics Hamas uses to exert "near-total control over U.N.-led aid operations" and seize "nearly all the incoming goods to feed and finance its terrorist regime."

U.N. officials, echoed by international media, have long accused Israel of causing mass hunger and death in Gaza while insisting there's no evidence of "systematic aid diversion by Hamas." Gazans and Israeli military officers said otherwise, estimating that Hamas hijacks about half of aid trucks before they reach U.N. warehouses. They then use U.N. employees and Gazan government officials who belong to or work with Hamas to control the aid that reaches those warehouses. Local merchants sell the goods at ever-increasing prices and pay substantial taxes back to Hamas.

Read more below:

RAFAH, GAZA STRIP—Every day this week, hundreds of U.N. trucks stacked with pallets of humanitarian aid have exited Israeli-patrolled routes and rumbled into population centers across the Gaza Strip, where Israel has implemented daily pauses in military operations.

Many of the trucks, though traveling under enhanced Israeli protections introduced on Sunday, have not reached U.N. warehouses, according to Gazans on the ground. Once the trucks have arrived in the population centers, armed Hamas militants have hijacked the cargo, the Gazans said, and what aid has arrived at the warehouses has disappeared into a patronage system controlled by Hamas.

Most Gazans have been forced to buy the aid at exorbitant prices from merchants hand-picked and heavily taxed by Hamas.

"Fifty trucks arrived yesterday at warehouses in Gaza City, and Hamas stole all of the aid," Moumen Al-Natour, a 30-year-old lawyer in the northern Gaza capital, said on Tuesday. "Today, the aid went on sale in the black markets at very high prices."

Al-Natour said a childhood friend, seeking to feed his family, joined a hungry mob trying to loot the trucks and was trampled to death along with a number of other civilians.

Gazans and Israeli military officers say this has been the reality in Gaza since fighting resumed in March. Hamas exerts near-total control over U.N.-led aid operations and seizes nearly all the incoming goods to feed and finance its terrorist regime, according to the people. Rather than confront the problem, U.N. officials have effectively aligned with Hamas, prolonging the war and the suffering of Gazans, the people say.

"Hamas has unfortunately been able to infiltrate the mechanism of the United Nations for a long time," said Al-Natour. "They take all the aid for their own people and leave nothing for the civilians. This is how they maintain their criminal government even as their popularity has collapsed."

U.N. officials, echoed by international media and world leaders, have long accused Israel of causing mass hunger and death in Gaza, saying Israeli authorities have prevented aid trucks from moving freely into and around the strip. Those condemnations have continued in recents days, even as the number of U.N. trucks entering Gaza’s population centers has surged.

The Gazans and Israeli officers told a different story, one in which the United Nations and Hamas share overlapping operations and interests in Gaza, belying U.N. claims to be neutral.

"We’ve seen it with our own eyes and intelligence," said a high-ranking Israeli officer involved in strategic planning. "The U.N. aid is being stolen by Hamas. It is making this war longer and making the situation worse for the people of Gaza."

"I don’t know if the United Nations and Hamas are exactly working together, but they’re working for the same purpose—and actually for the same reasons. They both want control and money," he said. "We know there’s an element of infiltration in these international organizations. We’ve seen it very clearly. There’s also the element of so-called protection money, where Hamas gets money or food from the organizations and what it gives them in return is protection, as in, 'We won’t kill you,' or, 'Your operations will remain safe.'"

Most of the dozens of people who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon in the course of this reporting asked to remain anonymous, the Israeli military officers to discuss politically sensitive information and the Gazans for fear Hamas would kill them.

READ MORE: How the ‘Neutral’ UN Is Helping Hamas Oppress Gazans and Fool the World