IDF’s Spielman Tells Newsmax: Hamas Profited Billions from International Aid

Hamas leaders living abroad have made billions off of funneling aid for the Gaza Strip, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman told Newsmax.

While Hamas is leading Palestinian Gazans into ruin, the leaders are living in exorbitant wealth abroad, Spielman told “The Record With Greta Van Susteren.”

“They fly around in private planes; they live in fantastic mansions,” Spielman said of Hamas leaders, adding it was being distributed through banking systems with close association to terrorist networks.

“It’s important to say, ‘Where did this come from?’ They didn’t make this money by manufacturing cars,” Spielman continued. “They made this money, Greta, by siphoning off the international aid.”

According to the United Nations, the unemployment rate in Gaza is 47%, but more than 80% of its population lives in poverty.

Israeli and Palestinian sources estimate Hamas, however, receives an annual military budget ranging from $100 million to $350 million.

The Department of Treasury believes Hamas uses the money it receives, both legally and illegally, to put toward an investment portfolio worth $500 million in real estate and other assets across the Middle East.

That money, then, is used to fund terrorist operations like the deadly Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, where over 1,400 civilians were killed.

“Facilities of UNRWA, the U.N. [United Nations’] Palestinian refugee agency, have been repeatedly used by Hamas Palestinian terrorists for military purposes as staging grounds, weapons depots and hideouts,” human rights activist Anne Bayefsky told Fox News.

“The fallout from their past behavior is that it is impossible and unwise to take them at their word or to assume they are a neutral party instead of serving as an enabler of Palestinian terrorism today,” she added.

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