Do GoFundMe campaigns ‘for Gazans’ end up in Hamas’s hands?

Palestinians in Gaza have been complaining that donations never made it to the people.

By OHAD MERLIN

JUNE 17, 2024 22:33

A Palestinian man walks amid the destruction in central Gaza City, May 12, 2021.
(photo credit: HAZEM ALBAZ/THE MEDIA LINE)

The Jerusalem Post has obtained a database that features over 1,200 GoFundMe campaigns related to Gaza, in which over USD 17m. have already been collected from people claiming that they’re from Gaza or by those claiming to seek donations on behalf of Gazans. The Post has queried GoFundMe on the findings.An analysis of a sample of the data showed at least six different currencies in these campaigns, including Canadian, Australian, and US dollars, Pounds Sterling, Euros, and Krona, implying that the campaigns originate in diverse areas of the world.Many fundraising pages seem to follow a similar format, with a foreign “sponsor” giving an introduction and presenting the family, the needs, and the costs.

Some of these sponsors are private, while others are promoted by organizations, including chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, who stood behind the encampments across US campuses.Over the past few weeks, few Gazans have complained that funds collected through some of these campaigns never make it to the public.

Palestinians at the site where two Israeli hostages rescued overnight in an Israeli operation in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 12, 2024 (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)Such examples include GoFundMe campaigns by “doctors and sisters on the ground in Gaza” Nour and Nagham Abou Halima, Gazan influencer Saleh Al-Jaafrawi, “journalist” Bisan Odeh and others, all of which faced criticism on social media for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars with nothing reaching the citizens themselves. Some campaigns call to donate money to “save families from genocide,” asking for tens of thousands of dollars only to cross to the Egyptian side of the border, and then several thousands more to cover further travel expenses to Western countries.

Disparities in costs of crossing Egypt

Notedly, there are some disparities in the alleged costs of crossing to Egypt, from several hundred dollars per person to a sum of $10,000 per person.In January, Le Monde published an expose showcasing a network of brokers and agencies operating on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing who sell permits for exorbitant prices of thousands of dollars to guarantee an exit from the Gaza Strip. Many Gazans also perceived this procedure as a form of bribery for shady characters operating at the border crossing.These descriptions of bribery and funding for sketchy operations on the Egyptian border are evidently missing from the descriptions of campaigns on the GoFundMe website, raising the question of whether donors are aware that their donations are in fact financing dubious activity.Another question raised is the issue of the legality of funding the transfer of large families into other countries with no full disclosure regarding immigration laws or visa statuses.The issue of Hamas’s domination over fiscal activity in Gaza is also absent. Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza have been revealed to have robbed hundreds of millions of dollars from Gazan banks –  several times over the past two decades –  and some Gaza-based banks have been designated by the US and others for years for their direct ties to financing Hamas and its terror activities.These two threats of Hamas operating or robbing banks in Gaza were not disclosed in the sample of GoFundMe campaigns that were tested, raising further questions regarding the donors’ awareness of these options of the funds not ending up at the hands of their targets, or in worst cases – making their way to Hamas and financing the radical group’s terrorist activity.

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