Post #4390903

2026-08-05 06:00 UTC

@mina@berlin.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al @Pyrogenesis@mefi.social I’m talking as someone who is in regular contact (daily or weekly) with at least a dozen of families in Gaza, and has learned a lot about how some things work down there. Still, what I’m going to say is not information I gathered myself, because I’m not in Gaza myself - but after hearing similar things from many families it starts to sound plausible. Hamas mostly works underground and in secrecy. Even families of the militants aren’t allowed to contact them amid fears of disclosing any details about their whereabouts or their structure. Given the risks involved for Hamas to reach out to civilians directly and transfer funds with them, there’s literally no reason to believe that any militant with a bit of brains would do that in exchange for… I don’t know, $100/week? Terrorist organizations like Hamas need much bigger funding for their activities (gunpowder, drones and heavy artillery aren’t cheap), and it’s very unlikely that they’d take the risk of raising that money from campaigns that barely raise enough to pay for basic items of food - especially when that comes with the risk of disclosing details about them. Plus, after talking to many of our friends I sense an almost universal sense of antipathy (ranging from mistrust to hate) for Hamas. Most of them blame Hamas as much as the Zionist terrorists for destroying their lives. Additionally, take into account that these platforms (especially GoFundMe) by now run extensive KYC checks both against beneficiaries and campaign managers. I know because I’ve been asked to provide a lot of personal information also for the campaigns I run. And they match that information against Worldcheck and other databases of known organizations or politically exposed people. If there was a case of affiliation with Hamas, it would have probably come out by now. That being said, I’m not saying that Hamas doesn’t use fundraisers at all. There were arrests in Italy some months ago because it turned out that some campaigns were actually financing the Italian cell of Hamas. But the patterns were very different: Campaigns were mostly anonymous and with no social media accounts linked The amounts raised were huge and suspicious There was no verification/vetting process p.s. I’m talking as a volunteer in gaza-verified, but not in Aral’s name or the initiative’s name, of course.

Replies (1)

@fabio@manganiello.eu 2026-08-05 06:17

@mina@berlin.social @Pyrogenesis@mefi.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al about the “campaigns and profiles seem to be too curated to be amateur” point: if your survival depends on something, rest assured that that “something” will soon become your profession and you’ll try to maximize returns out of it. It’s not a secret that in some cases campaigns in Gaza have become a “family business” and that some accounts even do some basic A/B testing to check what works. And it’s not even a secret that families that have been successful in this have actually managed to raise a lot. Talking of thousands of dollars per week in some cases. Which leads to a vicious cycle - those families eventually keep engaging in the patterns that seem more profitable, and other families who check what the “wealthiest” campaigns do also end up copying the same patterns - which lately often include even AI enhancement of pictures. Btw, families who raise such huge sums are also frowned upon in Gaza. I’ve heard other Palestinians going as far as calling them “thieves” and “the new uneducated rich”. And my advice is always to donate to those who raise the least instead.

Open ##4390902