NGO Monitor is calling for an urgent review by donor governments, multilateral bodies, and humanitarian agencies, warning that continuing cooperation with NGOs in Gaza without real safeguards deepens the risk of becoming indirect accomplices to terrorist events. The publication of these documents, just weeks after the outbreak of the conflict in 2023 and the launch of an alternative distribution operation by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), adds to the reshaping of the international aid map: pressure is growing to disentangle humanitarian assistance from organizations with proven vulnerability to co-optation, and to strengthen control, transparency, and neutrality mechanisms. With that operation, according to a recent NGO Monitor report, Hamas imposed appointments, monitored staff, diverted resources, and turned these organizations into operational instruments at the service of its apparatus, compromising their neutral character. According to the documents—captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and analyzed by NGO Monitor—Hamas designated local “guarantors” with proven ties to the movement, tasking them with facilitating permits for foreign personnel entry, managing visits, and intervening in NGO operations. Gaza, December 5, 2025 – Total News Agency-TNA-Internal documents recovered by security forces operating against Hamas reveal that between 2018 and 2022, the terrorist organization managed to infiltrate dozens of activists into international humanitarian aid organizations present in the Gaza Strip. According to the documents, this strategy of manipulating humanitarian aid represents "an exceptional intelligence achievement." The revelations renewed accusations that much of the aid sent to Gaza—supposedly distributed for civilian purposes—was captured or manipulated by Hamas, turning humanitarian programs into levers for supply, propaganda, or recruitment. This figure allowed for controlling access, monitoring activity, and in many cases conditioning the continuity of personnel and humanitarian projects on its approval. Among the mechanisms described: Collection of personal files on 55 "guarantors" collaborating with 48 organizations, including information on religious observance, assets, personal relationships, moral conduct, and political loyalty. Demands for administrative and financial documentation from NGOs in order to monitor and, in case of resistance, threaten with restrictions: the report points to explicit pressure on groups like Save the Children, Mercy Corps, or International Medical Corps (IMC) to share their accounts or establish agreements with entities linked to Hamas. Diversion of resources and manipulation of humanitarian projects: total control over aid logistics allowed for redirecting inputs to networks affiliated with the group, hiding the real financing, and ensuring that funds did not reach beneficiaries outside its domain. The report warns that this infiltration was not circumstantial but part of a planned strategy by Hamas's internal security apparatus, which used institutional power and coercion to bring NGOs under its control.
