After research from a conservative American think tank spanning many years revealed that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided millions of dollars of aid to charities tied to extremist and terrorist organizations, it was discovered that charities and other groups tied to Hamas received billions of dollars of funding from the same agency.

The United States State Department released a list of 898 approved government contracts and grants authorized by USAID, which includes over $2.5 billion of authorized funding to organizations that previously supported the charitable infrastructure of designated terrorist entities, such as Hamas.

The State Department also provided a document to Congress, listing 5,341 awards that were terminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to shut down the agency and cut off its funding, alongside the surviving 898 grants.

The surviving beneficiaries, who were discovered to have supported terrorist charitable infrastructure, are set to receive a total of $2.5 billion across 103 awards for projects that USAID estimates will cost the American taxpayer $3.4 billion.

In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars of these grants were set aside for projects in Gaza, run by organizations with histories of either being involved with Hamas proxies or Hamas itself. For example, a whopping $270 million will be awarded to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

The Norwegian Refugee Council was once accused of being a leading partner of Hamas, running dozens of joint events with the organization’s Ministry of Social Development. The group even praised the NRC for “supporting the projects“ of its ministry.

The charity organization was also accused of training its staff, with one social media post talking about a program funded by the NRC, which “includes the implementation of 10 awareness workshops targeting 220 staff members from the Ministry’s directorates and representatives of local and community councils across the governorates.“

Another charity organization that allegedly had ties to the terrorist organization was the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), a French charity. The organization received $403 million in funds from USAID. ACTED is said to be a partner of the Unlimited Friends Association (UFA), which is involved with senior Hamas leaders and promotes violent, antisemitic rhetoric on social media.

Aside from ACTED, the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which received $22 million in USAID funding, is allegedly a longstanding partner of the Bayader Association for Environment and Development, a charity also accused of having close ties with senior Hamas officials. With an estimated total cost of $50 million, the grant provided by USAID to ANERA is set to fund a project called “Gaza Health Recovery Activity.“

Other charities involved with Islamist groups that received USAID funding include Save the Children, International Medical Corps, World Vision, and Catholic Relief Services. The agency appropriated an additional $73 million to these charities for aid work in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and HTS-ruled Syria.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on April 22nd that a “sprawling bureaucracy“ exists at the US State Department, which “created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.“