Terror-aligned Western Islamist charities continue to operate in the Gaza Strip, with the apparent permission of Israel, despite Palestinian warnings about these charities’ activities, as well as growing efforts to de-fund such organizations in the United States. Why have Israeli authorities, both before and after the October 7 attacks, allowed Hamas and other Islamist aid infrastructure to operate so freely?
Rahma Worldwide, a Michigan-based charity particularly active in Gaza and Syria, just sent off its 23rd “medical mission” to Gaza. Along with plenty of press appearances, these delegations regularly meet with Hamas’s Ministry of Health.
Rahma is a dangerous charity. In September, FWI revealed that the nonprofit and its top officials for many years pursued close relationships with senior terrorist leaders, partnering with Hamas’s “Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Ministry of Education, and the General Administration of Zakat.”
Senior Rahma officials have appeared in Hamas media alongside these terrorist leaders, including Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad, who, weeks after the October 7 attacks carried out by his movement, in which almost 1,200 Israelis were murdered, promised that Hamas would repeat the attacks “time and again until Israel is annihilated.”
Shadi Zaza, head of Rahma Worldwide, signs agreements with Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad. Israeli authorities admitted Zaza and his team into the Gaza Strip again last week.
Despite the nonprofit’s connections to terror, Rahma is one of a select number of international charities reportedly operating through the Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, reportedly alongside two other radical U.S. charities previously profiled by FWI: American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
ANERA and PCRF have previously partnered with prominent Hamas proxies, while several ANERA staff have supported violence against Jews.
It is baffling that Israeli authorities permit these Western charities, which appear to benefit Hamas’s vitally important welfare infrastructure, to continue operating in Gaza.
Palestinians are beginning to wonder about this as well. Since October, Palestinian journalists have accused groups such as Rahma and ANERA of serving as profiteering “war merchants,” allegedly in cahoots with Hamas. This week, a number of Palestinian media reported that:
“Once the trucks enter Gaza, armed men working for these merchants seize the shipments and store them in private warehouses. Hamas facilitates these operations for a fee, while also commandeering some trucks to distribute contents among its supporters or to fund its activities.” [emphasis added]
Rahma has felt impelled to respond to such charges, with officials in December announcing the “formation of a fact-finding committee” to investigate allegations, and declaring their “shock” that “these violations occurring during the transport of containers after they have been handed over to authorized transport companies with legal permits from relevant authorities.” Meanwhile, Rahma officials, including Shadi Zaza, publish less polished rebuttals on social media, denouncing a network of critics in “Gaza, Istanbul and America” and threatening them with legal action.
The ease with which Rahma operates in coordination with Israeli authorities has led several Gaza-focused conspiracy theorists in Turkey and elsewhere to accuse Shadi Zaza (baselessly) of being an Israeli agent. Such hysteria aside, across parts of Gaza, residents are complaining that they haven’t received or even seen Rahma’s promised aid.
There is no definitive evidence that Rahma is guilty of any of these allegations, although, based on their responses, the charity’s officials certainly feel vulnerable. Even within Islamist circles in the West, the issue of Gaza frequently underpins dishonest charitable activities.
One New York-based 501(c), Umma Relief incessantly advertises its Gaza charitable work across YouTube and other media. Its 2023 tax returns disclose over $1.1 million of contributions in 2023. However, some $750,000 of that was spent on “advertising”, with another $169,000 paid to an unnamed “consultant.” Its returns offer no sign of actual charitable work, save for a mysterious $49,000 grant to an undisclosed grantee.
But even if Rahma Worldwide is providing aid in the Gaza Strip, it does so, FWI has convincingly shown, in alignment with Hamas’s welfare infrastructure in Gaza. And that alignment featured both Israeli and Hamas involvement from the very beginning. As Zaza recently told the Arabic Post:
“We contacted the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, and they welcomed the assistance. As a U.S.-based organization, we had certain privileges and exemptions in conflict zones that helped us secure the necessary approvals. We successfully sent the containers to the Ashdod Port [in Israel] and then to [Israel’s] Kerem Shalom Crossing, where the Palestinian Ministry of Health received them.”
Rahma is far from the only example. Other radical Western charities with terror connections also boast of their aid convoys to Gaza.
These include Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD), the humanitarian aid arm of the violent South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami. In 2017, the Middle East Forum revealed that HHRD was working with Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, leading to multiple congressional investigations.
In June, Chicago charity Pious Projects announced its head, Fahim Aref, successfully led a number of truck convoys to Gaza, “bringing aid from Jordan.” During one of the trips, two drivers were killed in a somewhat-unexplained incident. Aref and his charity’s partner in Gaza is Mohammed Ahmed, a Gazan who proudly disseminates Hamas clerics’ sermons inciting jihad against Jews, and whose cousin served as a senior Hamas minister.
A prominent Texas terror charity, Baitulmaal, is also committed to sending “humanitarian aid convoys.” Some of these efforts are coordinated in Egypt by Baitulmaal official Yousef Abdallah, denounced in the media several years ago after the Middle East Forum uncovered his praise for the killing of Jews. Baitulmaal works closely with Hamas proxies in Gaza, and its U.S. head, Mazen Mokhtar, is a former fundraiser for the Taliban and other jihadist groups.
Baitulmaal staff have gone on to work for Mercy Without Limits, a Kansas Islamist charity. Just a few weeks ago, Mercy Without Limits pledged to send a new truck convoy to Gaza. Its chairman, Mohamad Albadawi, previously served as an official of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), which, in 1995, hosted Hamas leader Sheikh Muhammad Siyam who, according to the New York Times, told the crowd: “Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all. Exterminate them. No peace ever.”
Other Islamist entities operating in Gaza with the apparent permission of Israel include Islamic Relief, a notoriously radical Muslim Brotherhood charity with branches across the world; as well as the Reach Education Fund, which is currently touring the U.S. with Kuwaiti Islamists recently returned from Gaza.
Reach Education officials are among the most extreme Islamists in America. Ahmed Gebreel, director of Reach’s Palestine Office, has referred to himself as a follower of Hitler, cheerfully noting the Nazis had wiped out millions of “impure” Jews. Ayyad Yassin, Reach’s current chairman, has published “congratulations to all our people in Gaza” following the Hamas’s killing of Israeli soldiers, as well as praise for a terrorist attack by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades.
In 2012, following Hamas’s infamous execution of six Palestinians in the streets of Gaza, in which corpses were dragged through the streets tied to a motorcycle, Gebreel posted a picture of a swastika, and referred to himself as a follower of Hitler, cheerfully noting the Nazis had wiped out millions of “impure” Jews.
A 2023 report published by FWI profiled all of these charities and presented evidence of their alignement with Hamas. Since that report, U.S. government funding for these charities has declined considerably, while grant-making foundations have canceled at least a million dollars of grants to these groups.
The Israeli government, however, still seems largely indifferent to the influence of these foreign Islamist benefactors in Gaza.
Earlier this year, the Israelis were even willing to look the other way after staff of the Michigan-based Rahma Worldwide appeared to collaborate with Aid 48, a pro-Hamas aid initiative inside Israel shut down by the security service Shin Bet.
This is not a new problem – for decades, the Israeli security establishment has turned a blind eye.
Western charities entering Gaza from Egypt do so today with the express permission of the Israeli authorities, which currently controls the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing. Before that, since an agreement with Egypt in 2007, Egypt controlled the crossing, but “supplies coming into Gaza through Rafah require[d] Israeli approval.”
Yet, since 2009, Hamas-controlled aid convoys from Europe and North Africa, organized by a group named “Miles of Smiles,” have easily entered Gaza by land, carrying supplies to take part in photo-ops, press conferences and meetings with senior Hamas leaders and Hamas institutions.
The general coordinator of Miles of Smiles, Essam Yusuf (also known as Essam Mustafa), is head of U.K. charity Interpal, a designated terrorist organization under U.S. law, because of its open support for Hamas. According to the BBC, Yusuf reportedly “served on the Hamas executive committee under Hamas leader Khaled Misha’al.”
Each year, the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh received Miles of Smiles delegates at his home, and joined them at the head of Hamas rallies where participants “praise[d] Hamas’ military wing, Al Qassam Brigades, and martyrdom.”
In 2023, the most recent Miles of Smiles convoy comprised delegates from “Jordan, Malaysia, Britain, Belgium and Sweden,” and entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where it took part in a press conferences with Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad (Rahma Worldwide’s Hamas minister-of-choice).
These aid convoys have served as an explicit and crucial component of Hamas’s fundraising, propaganda and “da’wah” activities, entering Gaza with the knowledge and approval of the Israeli government, even while Israeli government reports publicly list Miles of Smiles and Essam Yusuf as key components of Hamas’s infrastructure.
In 2006, a BBC documentary concluded that funds provided by U.K. charity (and Miles of Smiles supporter) Interpal “helped build up Hamas into what it is today.” Just as Hamas itself grew out of aid and welfare programs, the decision to allow Western Islamists to nourish and rebuild Gaza in the wake of the October 2023 attacks will undoubtedly facilitate future generations of Islamist influence in the Strip, and risks rebuilding terror groups such as Hamas.
Indeed, this Israeli policy may even lead to the import of new types of Islamism into the Palestinian territories. Additional U.S. charities active in Gaza right now include organizations such as the Human Development Fund (HDF) in Illinois, a product of a uniquely Western collaboration between modernist Salafi and Deobandi Islamists.
HDF is led by a prominent radical imam, Abdirahman Kariye, a prominent figure within Minnesota’s Somali Islamist circles. Karyie and his teacher, an infamous radical imam named Waleed al-Maneese, teach markedly extremist ideas. HDF staff, in the wake of the October 7 attacks, denounced Holocaust survivors and called on God to “destroy” the Israelis.
HDF works closely with the Turkish regime, and receives funding through official regime arms in the United States. The charity’s imams include Hussein Kamani, a Deobandi who warns Muslims not to “resemble the Jews,” prescribes beating disobedient wives or children who do not pray, and explains that a Muslim man may fulfill any sexual desire “with a female slave that belongs to him.”
HDF events attract extremist speakers, with one upcoming Pennsylvania event featuring Salafi imam Mohammed Elshinawy, whom the NYPD once accused of “mak[ing] statements and conduct[ing] activities in support of violent jihad.” In 2023, Elshinawy appeared to welcome the October 7 attacks, stating: “Do not equate the violence of the oppressed with that of the oppressor.”
Gregg Roman, director of the Middle East Forum, explains: “Bureaucratic inertia, incompetence and rifts within Israeli government and military institutions might explain some of the Israeli government’s decisions. But some tolerance of Hamas’s charitable infrastructure may be deliberate. Allowing these charities might represent a calculated trade-off: accepting some Hamas influence in exchange for deflecting criticism about blocking aid.”
“Israel’s security services may also consider tolerance of international Islamist influence to be a strategically useful choice, in which allowing these organizations to operate in Gaza affords intelligence value. Israel may also view these Western Islamist organizations as a means to dilute Hamas’s direct control over aid distribution, creating competing power centers within Gaza.”
“This is wrongheaded thinking by Israeli authorities. Islamist welfare in the Gaza Strip isn’t just about the money. Hamas was built on social and welfare infrastructure from its inception. Foreign Islamist charitable operations in Gaza serve to help Hamas ideologically and politically, provide the terror group with recruits, and free up funding for terror activities. As Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has noted: when you help a terror group build homes, you’re helping a terror group build bombs.”
Daniel Pipes, in his book on “Israel Victory,” cites multiple scandalous examples in which successive Israeli administrations did not just disregard the problem of Hamas financing sources, but actively participated in foreign Islamist financing of the terror group, helping to transport and launder funds that ended up in the hands of the terror group. Even Al-Jazeera notes, under Israeli supervision, “before the war, some $30m in cash was delivered in suitcases to Gaza each month through an Israeli-controlled crossing.
It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind such lunacy. But some vital action can be taken now: Israel must ban all Western Islamist charities from operating in the Palestinian territories. There are alternative, non-Islamist means to provide aid for the people of Gaza. Policymakers in Jerusalem must finally learn the importance of defeating Hamas’s social and welfare arms, from which Hamas’s ideological influence and strength is drawn.
