(JNS) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday accused the United States Agency for International Development of providing “vast and secret” funding for Hamas following new revelations about USAID’s practices vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians.
On X, Cruz accompanied his allegation with a link to an exposé published Monday by the Washington Free Beacon that detailed cases of alleged funding by USAID of Hamas and terrorist-affiliated entities and the agency’s record of hostile lobbying against the Jewish state.
The full story of USAID funding Hamas is vast, and much of it was done in secret. Before and after October 7, USAID flowed uncountable hundreds of millions of dollars toward Hamas that enabled it to launch the attack and keep battling Israel afterwards.
They lied about the…
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 10, 2025
“The full story of funding Hamas is vast, and much of it was done in secret,” Cruz wrote. “Before and after October 7, [2023], USAID flowed uncountable hundreds of millions of dollars toward Hamas that enabled it to launch the attack and keep battling Israel afterwards. They lied about the nature of that aid in public databases, refused to disclose what groups were getting the money, and gave tens of millions in American cash to be distributed without American supervision.”
Internally, Cruz added, USAID “admitted the aid would benefit Hamas, and even exempted themselves from anti-terrorism laws, but in public issued denials.”
The exposé referenced a report published last month by NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog, which showed funding in 2023 to the tune of $9 million by USAID to Mercy Corps, a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Mercy Corps worked to distribute the money among households in Gaza with the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Social Development, according to U.N. documents revealed in the report.
USAID has earmarked $36.7 million for Mercy Corps projects in Judea and Samaria and Gaza since 2021, beyond the $9 million project in 2022, the report showed.
Mercy Corps did not respond to a request for comment by JNS on this information. USAID has consistently maintained it vets recipients to make sure taxpayer’s funds aren’t misused. USAID did not reply by press time to a query by JNS for comment on the NGO Monitor report.
“We’ve been saying for years that there are fundamental problems at USAID that requie greater scrutiny,” Yona Schiffmiller, director of research at NGO Monitor, told JNS. “As you see in the Mercy Corps document, there is a threat of aid diversion,” he said. “I feel that there is certainly political will [for conducting this scrutiny].”
In recent weeks, the administration of President Donald Trump froze funding by USAID to third parties as the Department of State under Secretary Marco Rubio and other government entities review its spendings and procedures.
Earlier this month, Rubio, whom Trump named acting administrator of the USAID in addition to his duties as secretary of state, said the agency “has long strayed from its original mission of responsibly advancing American interests abroad, and it is now abundantly clear that significant portions of USAID funding are not aligned with the core national interests of the United States.”
USAID has maintained that it vets recipients to ensure funding does not end in enriching terrorists or criminals.
In a report published on Monday, USAID’s Inspector General’s Office said the Trump administration’s reduction of the agency’s personnel and its freeze on foreign assistance had made it more difficult to track and respond to potential misuse of $8.2 billion in US taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance. On Tuesday, USAID inspector general Paul Martin was fired.
The Free Beacon report also said that USAID had led a diplomatically hostile approach to Israel, especially under former agency head Samantha Power, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama.
Under Power, USAID accused Israel of deliberately blocking Gazan aid deliveries, and in 2021 she refused to meet with Israel’s ambassador unless Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas after it attacked Israel, the Free Beacon reported.
