Two senior Israeli army officers have told The New York Times there is no evidence that Hamas looted UN humanitarian aid in Gaza, undermining a central Israeli justification for severely restricting food deliveries to over two million people and driving the population towards famine.
The unnamed officers, along with two other Israeli officials involved in aid monitoring, admitted the UN’s aid distribution system, long disparaged by Israel, was in fact “largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population.”
“For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid,” NYT reported, noting these unproven claims were used to justify policies that pushed Gaza’s population towards starvation by blocking humanitarian supplies.
“There was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid,” one official told the paper.
Georgios Petropoulos, the UN humanitarian coordinator who liaised with Israeli authorities during the war, condemned the smear campaign:
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“For months, we and other organisations were dragged through the mud by accusations that Hamas steals from us,” he said.
The Times’ reporting marks a significant reversal from its earlier coverage, which largely echoed Israeli talking points that painted Hamas as hijacking aid. The paper has long faced accusations of systemic pro-Israel bias, with nearly two dozen top editors and reporters linked to pro-Israel advocacy groups.
This latest revelation reinforces what critics and humanitarian groups have insisted for months: there was no organised Hamas theft of international aid.
US probe found no evidence Hamas diverted aid
Earlier this week, Reuters revealed an internal US government review, carried out by a bureau of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), found no proof that Hamas systematically diverted US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The investigation covered 156 reports of theft or loss of US aid from October 2023 to May 2025 and concluded there were “no reports alleging Hamas” gained from the aid.
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Instead, 44 of those cases were directly or indirectly blamed on Israeli forces, including 11 linked to air strikes and others tied to military-imposed delivery routes known to be vulnerable to looting.
The USAID findings further discredit the Israeli claims that helped justify the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a mechanism backed by both Israel and the US but rejected by the UN and international aid groups for violating neutrality principles.
The UN reports that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to collect aid, most of them near GHF distribution zones, which are heavily militarised.
Since 2 March, Israel’s siege has prevented UN and partner agencies from delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza, pushing the population to the edge of famine. The Palestinian health ministry says at least 115 people, including 80 children, have died of starvation since then, 15 of them on Monday alone.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians and wounded over 142,000 others since October 2023.
