The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an organization established to provide “safe” and “transparent” assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, has distributed aid seemingly belonging to two U.S. Islamist charities aligned with Hamas.
Global media coverage of GHF’s initial efforts to distribute aid accompanied widely viewed footage on social media of chaotic scenes at the distribution sites in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have blamed Hamas, which has publicly opposed the GHF and any effort to wrest control of Gaza’s humanitarian aid industry from the terror group’s influence.
Nonetheless, photos released by the GHF appear to show aid boxes featuring the logos of two prominent U.S. nonprofit organizations with terror ties: Rahma Worldwide and Heroic Hearts.
Rahma, a Michigan-based charity particularly active in Gaza and Syria, has for many years enjoyed high-level relationships with senior terrorist leaders, admitting to partnering with Hamas’s “Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Ministry of Education, and the General Administration of Zakat.”
Senior Rahma officials have appeared in Hamas media alongside these terrorist leaders, including Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad, who, weeks after the October 7 attacks carried out by his movement, in which almost 1,200 Israelis were murdered, promised that Hamas would repeat the attacks “time and again until Israel is annihilated.” The Hamas leader has been quoted praising the “depth of the ministry’s relationship with donor institutions such as Rahma.”
Rahma has also embraced other terrorist organizations. In 2023, FWI found that Rahma was working with and receiving money from Kuwait’s Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS). The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated RIHS in 2008, citing its support for Al-Qaeda, and its efforts to use “charity and humanitarian assistance as cover to fund terrorist activity and harm innocent civilians.” RIHS is also accused of funding Hamas.
In Gaza, Rahma’s involvement with RIHS was so intimate that the terrorist group’s logo was even sown on to the jackets of Rahma officials and volunteers.
Heroic Hearts, meanwhile, is an Illinois charity, whose officials are overt supporters of Hamas leaders and have also posted songs on social media which call on Muslims to “pick up a keffiyah and dagger at the waist” to win back Al-Aqsa.
Multiple advertisements in the Hamas newspaper Felesteen News note Heroic Hearts’ partnership with the Hope Bridge Charitable Association, a charity in Gaza that solicits donations through the use of footage from Hamas’s TV station, Quds News Network. One senior official of Hope Bridge has often posted radical material on social media, including expressions of mourning for the death of a Hamas Security Force operative killed in fighting with Israeli troops.
Heroic Hearts field manager Mohammed Jaber is also the “activities coordinator” for the Reach Education fund, one of the most radical Hamas-aligned charities in North America. Ahmed Gebreel, director of Reach’s Palestine Office, refers to himself as a follower of Hitler, cheerfully noting the Nazis had wiped out millions of “impure” Jews. Ayyad Yassin, Reach’s current chairman, has published “congratulations to all our people in Gaza” following Hamas’s killing of Israeli soldiers, as well as praise for a terrorist attack by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades.
It remains unclear if Rahma Worldwide and Heroic Hearts are explicitly involved with the GHF. Rahma appears to enjoy a cautiously positive relationship with Israeli authorities, despite its past coordination with Hamas as well as its alleged involvement with banned Islamist organizations inside Israel itself.
FWI reached out to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) office for comment, and will provide their response once received.
Update:
Rahma now claims that 4,000 of its aid boxes were handed over, without Rahma’s permission, to GHF for distribution in Gaza.
Update 2:
Rahma has since deleted their first public statement, and released a revised statement, this time indicating collaboration with GHF.
