Hamas always shed wages and awards

After almost two years of war, Hamas’ military capacity is seriously weakened and its political leadership under intense pressure.

However, throughout the war, Hamas managed to continue using a secret cash payment system to pay 30,000 wages of civil servants totaling $ 7 million (5.3 million pounds sterling).

The BBC spoke to three officials who confirmed that she had received nearly $ 300 each in the last week.

It is believed that they are among the tens of thousands of employees who have continued to receive just over 20% of their pre-war salary every 10 weeks.

In the midst of the arrow inflation, the token salary – a fraction of the total amount – leads to an increase in resentment among the faithful of the party.

Severe food shortages – that the help agencies blame Israeli restrictions – and the increase in cases of acute malnutrition continue in Gaza, where a kilogram of flour in recent weeks has cost up to $ 80 – a record level.

Without functional banking system in Gaza, even receiving the salary is complex and sometimes dangerous. Israel identifies and regularly targets wage distributors in Hamas, seeking to disrupt the group’s ability to govern.

Employees, police officers to tax managers often receive an encrypted message on their own phone or spouse asking them to go to a specific place at a specific time to “meet a friend for tea”.

At the meeting point, the employee is approached by a man – or sometimes by a woman – who discreetly puts back a sealed envelope containing the money before disappearing without any other interaction.

An employee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Hamas, who does not want to give his name for security reasons, described the dangers linked to the collection of his salary.

“Every time I look for my salary, I say goodbye to my wife and children. I know I may not come back,” he said. “On several occasions, Israeli strikes have reached the wage distribution points. I survived one that targeted a market occupied in Gaza City.”

Alaa, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, is a teacher employed by the government managed by Hamas and the only supplier for a family of six people.

“I received 1,000 shekels (around $ 300) in worn tickets – no merchant would accept them. Only 200 Shekels were usable – the rest, I do not honestly know what to do,” he told the BBC.

“After two and a half months of hunger, they pay us in shredded liquidity.

“I often have to go to help the distribution points in the hope of having my children nourish flour. Sometimes I manage to bring a little home, but most of the time I fail.”

In March, the Israeli army said that it had killed Hamas’ finance, Ismail Barhoum, in a Nasser hospital strike in Khan Younis. They accused him of channeling the funds to the military wing of Hamas.

We still do not know how Hamas managed to continue to finance salary payments given the destruction of a large part of its administrative and financial infrastructure.

A Higher employee of Hamas, who held high positions and who knew Hamas’ financial operations, told BBC that the group had stored around $ 700 million in cash and hundreds of millions of shekels in underground tunnels before the group’s deadly Israel campaign in southern Israel, which sparked the devastating Israeli military campaign.

They would have been supervised directly by the chief of Hamas Yahya Sinwar and his brother Mohammed – who have since been killed from the Israeli forces.

Hamas has historically reached the financing of heavy import rights and taxes imposed on the Gaza population, as well as millions of dollars in Qatar support.

The Qassam brigades, the Hamas military wing which operates through a separate financial system, is mainly funded by Iran.

A senior official of the Muslim Brotherhood of prohibited Egypt, one of the most influential Islamist organizations in the world, said that around 10% of their budget was also sent to Hamas.

In order to generate income during the war, Hamas also continued to collect taxes on traders and sold large quantities of cigarettes at swollen prices up to 100 times their original cost. Before the war, a box of 20 cigarettes costs $ 5 – which has now increased to more than $ 170.

In addition to cash payments, Hamas has distributed food plots to its members and their families via local emergency committees whose leadership is frequently turned due to repeated Israeli strikes.

This has fueled the anger of the public, many residents of Gaza accusing Hamas to distribute aid only to its supporters and to the exclusion of the wider population.

Israel accused Hamas of stolen aid that entered Gaza during the ceasefire earlier this year, which Hamas denies. However, BBC sources in Gaza said that significant amounts of aid had been taken by Hamas during this period.

Nisreen Khaled, a widow left three children after the death of her husband of cancer five years ago, told the BBC: “When hunger worsened, my children were crying not only with pain but also to look at our neighbors affiliated with Hamas receive plots of food and bags of flour.

“Isn’t that the reason for our suffering? Why have they not secured food, water and medicines before launching their adventure on October 7?”