EXCLUSIVE — A little-known United Nations agency funded by the Trump administration has worked with Hamas to provide Gaza aid supplies, a report obtained by the Washington Examiner reveals.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs cooperated with the Hamas-linked Palestinian Ministry of Social Development from at least 2021 to 2025, according to records gathered and translated by the Israeli watchdog group NGO Monitor. Public materials and Hamas documents show the terrorist group meddling in OCHA programs to control aid distribution and conceal identities of members who could be recipients, NGO Monitor found.
NGO Monitor’s report underscores the persistent problem of American tax dollars meant for charitable purposes that inadvertently flow toward terrorist regimes controlling the affected areas. Hamas has especially faced years of international scorn for stealing humanitarian aid to enrich itself and fuel its operations.
“To correct this, the State Department should immediately freeze [American] funding pending the results of a detailed and independent audit of OCHA’s activities and funding in Gaza covering at least the past five years,” NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald Steinberg told the Washington Examiner. “The cash assistance programs that rely on Hamas-controlled mechanisms for distribution of funds must be halted, accompanied by full transparency regarding partner NGOs and entities involved in determining beneficiaries. These long-overdue measures will prevent further transfer of U.S. taxpayer dollars into the coffers of terrorists.”
The U.N. has increasingly sparked controversy since Hamas’s October 2023 massacre over terrorist ties. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden put freezes on federal funding for the U.N. Relief Works Agency after Israel accused it of hiring Hamas members involved in the attacks. A U.S. inspector general’s office identified at least 100 such UNRWA employees in June and referred them for suspension or removal.
However, OCHA has avoided the same scrutiny despite Israel accusing it in July 2025 of having Hamas connections. The State Department has announced $3.8 billion in humanitarian funds for the agency since December, promising better “oversight and accountability measures” than past U.N. programs. “Over time, the Department of State expects all U.S. funding of U.N. humanitarian work to be channeled through OCHA pooled fund vehicles,” the department said in September.
OCHA and the State Department did not provide comment when the Washington Examiner reached out. U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher responded to Israel in July by saying the U.N.’s work requires engaging with both sides in a war and that its “contacts with Hamas have also supported hostage releases,” Reuters reported.
‘The workers in the resistance’
Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad became head of the ministry’s Gaza branch from 2019 to at least 2024, and it has remained under Hamas jurisdiction in Gaza, NGO Monitor’s report notes. Hamas officials said they were preparing to dissolve their government earlier this month to comply with Trump’s peace plan for the region. It is unclear what control Hamas now has over the agency.
Hamad’s Ministry of Social Development was open about its work with OCHA in a 2021 Facebook post that showed Hamad meeting with the U.N. agency to discuss “mutual cooperation” and their “ongoing relationship,” according to NGO Monitor’s translations.
The translated Hamas records, dating from 2018 to 2022, show the group’s “review of surveys, modification of data collection tools, approval requirements for field operations, and oversight” over OCHA programs, the report said.
In one 2020 document, Hamas ordered the removal of questions from a survey designed to gather data on Gazans for an OCHA-funded program, according to NGO Monitor’s translations. The terrorist group’s Ministry of Interior and National Security expressed concern that some questions would reveal “the workers in the resistance [Hamas],’” the report found. Additionally, a September 2021 Ministry of Interior and National Security record describes Hamas nominating recipients of aid to pass along to OCHA aid partners, according to the report.
The document also lists a team in charge of the project that includes someone tied to “members of Hamas,” NGO Monitor found. A June 2021 Hamas file shows more infiltration, describing an OCHA partner group with three out of seven board members who are “Hamas supporters.” The OCHA partner was reportedly tasked with providing shelter to vulnerable Gazans.
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NGO Monitor alleged the lack of independence from dangerous entities runs even deeper. Its report cites recent OCHA grants to supposed humanitarian groups that Israeli or U.S. authorities deem as fronts for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist terrorist organization behind decades of bloodshed.
“The evidence clearly shows how OCHA, like many other UN agencies that operate in Gaza, cooperates closely with Hamas and other terror organizations, and is not a substitute for UNRWA,” Steinberg told the Washington Examiner.