Hamas is generating as much as $5 million a day from goods entering Gaza while rebuilding tunnels, accumulating weapons, and planning possible attacks on Israeli troops, including attempts to kidnap soldiers, according to separate Israeli television reports this week citing security officials.
Neomi Neumann, a former head of research at Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, told the Kan public broadcaster on Thursday that Hamas continues to exercise effective control over Gaza’s population through a decentralized system of taxation, aid distribution, and covert enforcement.
Neumann, now an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, estimated that Hamas earns between $2 million and $5 million daily by imposing heavy taxes on goods entering the enclave and exploiting humanitarian assistance.
“Everything that enters the Strip becomes a source of income for Hamas,” Neumann said in the interview. “It confiscates some of the humanitarian aid and sells the goods at high prices on the black market.”
AFSI Insight
Hamas’s reported $2–$5 million in daily revenue while rearming and plotting soldier abductions exposes the danger of allowing this terrorist organization to retain control of Gaza. Humanitarian aid and commercial goods must not become sources of funding for terrorism. AFSI maintains that there can be no meaningful ceasefire or lasting security while Hamas retains its weapons, terror infrastructure, and governing authority. Hamas must be completely dismantled and Gaza demilitarized before Israel considers further withdrawals or reconstruction. Israel’s security must come first.