Hamas Can’t Pay Its New Recruits, and Slashes Salaries of Its Veteran Operatives

Hamas is suffering a profound financial crisis. Money from Iran that used to be smuggled in through Syria can no longer take that route; the Sunni jihadists who now rule in Damascus regard Shi’a Iran as an enemy and instead of facilitating such money-smuggling, they now interdict it. The terror group’s other main source of money came from its resale of humanitarian aid that Hamas would seize as soon as it entered Gaza, and then resell to the very people for whom it was meant to be distributed for free. Now Israel has cut off that aid to Gaza in order to squeeze Hamas, while indicating a willingness to discuss a resumption of that aid if it is distributed by the IDF or by a private contractor approved by the Israelis.

Meanwhile, without the ability to resell aid that is no longer available, Hamas is at a loss; it does not know where to put its feet or hands. It is desperate. More on Hamas’ financial degringolade can be found here: “A Depleted Hamas Is So Low on Cash That It Can’t Pay Its Fighters,” by Summer Said, Carrie Keller-Lynn, and Benoit Faucon, Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2025:

Hamas is facing a new problem in Gaza: coming up with the cash it needs to pay its rank and file.

Israel last month cut off supplies of humanitarian goods to the enclave, some of which Hamas had been seizing and selling to raise funds, according to Arab, Israeli and Western officials. Its renewed offensive has targeted and killed Hamas officials who played important roles in distributing cash to cadres and sent others into hiding, Arab intelligence officials said.

Salary payments to many Gaza government employees have ceased, while many senior Hamas fighters and political staff began receiving only about half of their pay midway through last month’s Ramadan holy period, the intelligence officials said. Rank-and-file Hamas fighters’ pay had been averaging around $200 to $300 a month, they said.

The shortfalls are creating hardship across Hamas’s ranks in Gaza’s cash economy and signal a deepening organizational dysfunction in the militant group as it also contends with a more aggressive Israeli military strategy….

Outside of this website and that of Elder of Ziyon, when have you ever seen a discussion about Gaza that discusses Article 23 of the Geneva Convention, that spells out the circumstances when it is licit, in wartime, to deprive the enemy of humanitarian aid? When have you ever read about the massive amounts of aid that Hamas routinely seizes and keeps for its own members, or for resale at exorbitant prices to the people of Gaza? When have you ever read about the $14 billion stolen by four Hamas leaders, or about the failure of the West and, especially, of the UN, to demand the disgorgement of that money, so that it might be spent for the benefit of the Gazans? Why were you kept in the dark by the media, which has largely failed to report that Israel has offered to renew the deliveries of aid to Gaza, as long as Hamas is not involved, and as long as that aid can be distributed either by the IDF or by private contractors approved by the IDF?

There’s been a lot of speculation recently about Hamas supposedly being able to recruit almost as many people — more than 20,000 — as it has lost in the fighting so far. Perhaps it has managed to recruit some thousands, though not quite as many as Hamas boasts. But will those recruits remain to fight for Hamas if their pay is cut in half, as now, or by even greater amounts in the months to come?