In the world of asymmetric warfare, logistics often masquerade as charity, and narrative is as potent as firepower. On December 29, 2025, a convoy of trucks laden with dates, pasta, blankets, and heating stoves rolled into the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. To the casual observer, it appeared to be a routine winter relief mission. But the reception told a different story. The delegation wasn’t greeted by low-level aid coordinators; they were received personally by Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front and President of the self-proclaimed SADR, in a high-level ceremony usually reserved for state dignitaries.
The organization in question is the Algerian White Hands Association (El Ayadi El Baida). While they market themselves globally as a humanitarian NGO running soup kitchens in war-torn Gaza, a closer look at their charter and digital footprint reveals a far more militant objective. This is not merely a charity; it is a soft-power wing of the Algerian military regime, now being deployed to execute a dangerous rebranding of the Western Sahara conflict.
Recruited for the Army
While the Association’s President, Bouzid Chennaf, focuses his public addresses on religious duty and humanitarian aid for Palestine and the Sahrawi people, the organization’s official institutional mandate tells a different story. On the “About Us” section of its official English-language website, the Association explicitly defines its structure and loyalty in martial terms:
This is not merely a charity; it is a soft-power wing of the Algerian military regime.
“The Algerian White Hands Association is a national association with dozens of offices throughout the country. They were all recruited with all their strength to be a support and aid to the Algerian army.”
This admission is the smoking gun. In a country like Algeria, where the military is the supreme political broker, declaring that an NGO’s national network is “recruited” to support the Army is code for acting as an extension of state intelligence and logistics. The timing of their pivot to Tindouf is surgical. For months, this group has built a global reputation by broadcasting images of their relief work in Gaza, capitalizing on the emotional resonance of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world. By shifting their focus—and their branding—to the Polisario camps, Algeria is attempting a sophisticated psychological operation: to visually and morally equate the Western Sahara conflict with the war in Gaza.
The Trigger: UN Resolution 2797
Why is Algeria resorting to this “Trojan Horse” strategy now? The answer lies in a catastrophic diplomatic defeat suffered just two months ago in New York. On October 31, 2025, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2797, a historic text that fundamentally rewrote the international parameters of the conflict.
Algeria is attempting a sophisticated psychological operation: to visually and morally equate the Western Sahara conflict with the war in Gaza.
For decades, UN resolutions had balanced delicately between “self-determination” and political reality. Resolution 2797 shattered that ambiguity. In a decisive 11-to-0 vote (with Russia, China, and Pakistan abstaining), the Security Council explicitly affirmed that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty could constitute a most feasible solution.”
Crucially, Algeria—which currently holds a non-permanent seat on the Council—refused to participate in the vote entirely, a diplomatic tantrum that underscored its isolation.The international community, led by the United States and supported implicitly by a growing consensus, has effectively declared that the era of referendums and independence is over. The “Autonomy Plan,” proposed by Morocco in 2007, is no longer just a proposal; it is now enshrined in international law as the primary basis for a “just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution.”
Losing the Legal War, Starting a Narrative War
Algeria’s refusal to participate in the vote for Resolution 2797 underscored its isolation. Algiers has lost the legal argument at the UN. It has also lost the conventional military balance; Morocco’s recent operationalization of the Israeli-made Barak MX missile defense system has effectively closed the skies over the Sahara to Algerian air power.
Algiers has lost the legal argument at the UN.
By deploying an NGO famous for its work in Gaza to Tindouf, Algiers is trying to bypass the UN Security Council and appeal directly to the “Arab Street.” The narrative they are constructing is simple but dangerous: Tindouf is Gaza, the Polisario are the Resistance, and Morocco is the Occupier.
Brahim Ghali’s effusive praise for the delegation on December 29—lauding their “principled and unwavering support”—was not about the pasta or the blankets.It was an endorsement of this new strategy. The convoy serves as a physical link between the “Resistance” in the Levant and the “Resistance” in the Maghreb, financed and coordinated by the Algerian military establishment.
A Dangerous Precedent
This development poses a unique challenge. The “White Hands” operate in a gray zone—providing legitimate aid while serving the strategic interests of a military regime allied with Russia and Iran.
When an NGO that pledges loyalty to a national army sets up shop in a refugee camp controlled by a separatist militia, the line between humanitarian aid and military logistics evaporates. The presence of the “White Hands” in Tindouf signals that Algeria is preparing for a long, asymmetrical struggle. They are digging in for a war of attrition, using human shields and humanitarian covers to sustain a conflict that the UN Security Council, through Resolution 2797, has already decided how to end. The dates and blankets are real, but the intent behind them is to freeze the conflict in a state of perpetual grievance, holding the Sahrawi population hostage to a lost cause.
Published originally on December 31, 2025.
