Encrypted and Absolutely Confidential Messages: How Does Hamas Pay Its Employees Nearly Two Years After the War?

SadaNews - A message on the phone invites the recipient to a "cup of coffee," a meeting amid the rubble, and the handover of cash... This is how Hamas continues to pay the salaries of its employees in Gaza, despite two years of war, in a process described by one person as "fraught with death."

Despite Hamas becoming weaker, its capabilities diminishing, and a liquidity shortage, testimonies from several government employees, all of whom used pseudonyms, confirm that they still receive salaries, or part of them, from the movement.

Kareem (39 years old), an employee in the Public Works Ministry affiliated with Hamas, recounts that in July, he received a message on his mobile phone saying, "So-and-so (name not specified)... invites you for a cup of coffee" along with the time and place, near a school that has turned into a shelter for displaced persons in an area he also refused to specify.

He says, "I went to the specified location. I was very scared of an Israeli airstrike. There, a colleague I knew was waiting for me. He handed me 1,000 shekels ($298)," which is part of his monthly salary that used to be 2,900 shekels before the war.

He describes the salary handover as "fraught with death."

People living in the Gaza Strip told via phone that they fear being near individuals associated with Hamas, or working with them, or fighting alongside them, as Israel is capable of monitoring the presence of many of these people and often targets them with airstrikes or drones, leading to the martyrdom of those around them.

Alaa, a teacher in a public school in Gaza City, recounts that the last salary she received was in June.

On that day, she received a text message on her phone asking her to head to a shelter school in the northern part of the Strip.

The thirty-something woman, who is married with five children, says: "The school had just been bombed by Israel, and the employee who delivers the salaries fled. Thank God I was late; I escaped death."

She returned to the area the next day to receive her salary.

Before the war, Hamas relied on customs duties and taxes, which encompass all aspects of life, including income taxes, fees on trade and municipal services, and government transactions, to prepare its government budget.

Since 2021, Qatar has been sending monthly amounts to Gaza, which reached 360 million dollars a year before the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023, under agreements to secure the salaries of employees and assist the poor in the sector.

It is also known that Hamas relied on financial support from various undeclared parties.

A knowledgeable Palestinian official in Gaza indicated that Hamas obtained funds through complex and secret means, including smuggling via border tunnels or by sea.

"Storing Money"

Hamas is tight-lipped about its sources of funding and how it secures them. A prominent member of the movement states that it is "a matter of national security, part of the resistance."

However, Jamil (43 years old), an accountant at a government institution in Gaza, claims that Hamas "has stored hundreds of millions of dollars, whether in tunnels or safe places for tough times, like war," without providing further details.

He then points out that Israel "bombed banks belonging to Hamas and several locations containing money stores, and assassinated a number of officials in the financial system, but this did not stop the journey."

Israel has destroyed all of the movement's institutions in the sector. It has also destroyed branches of two banks established after Hamas took control in 2007, which the Palestinian Monetary Authority does not recognize, namely "The Production Bank" and "The Islamic National Bank."

The Israeli army published videos in February 2024, showing boxes and bags containing large sums of money in shekels, dollars, and Jordanian dinars, claiming they were found in one of the tunnels.

The Israeli army carried out strikes targeting officials accused by Israel of managing Hamas's finances, one of whom was the official Ismail Barhoum, whom the army announced was killed in March.

Testimonies gathered by the "Agence France-Presse" reveal that Israel targeted salary delivery points in the destroyed sector dozens of times, some of which resulted in the martyrdom of individuals.

Some senior employees receive their salary clandestinely at their residences in displacement camps or shelters, "to avoid Israeli strikes," according to a Hamas source.

Jamil explains that the salary payment process is "very complicated" and that the payment plan "changes constantly according to the security situation," emphasizing that the government is "keen on paying part of the salaries whenever funds are available."

According to a Hamas official in Doha, the movement "spares no effort to secure salaries," adding that "the occupation's claim (...) that it has eradicated Hamas is false."

The number of government employees in the Gaza Strip is forty thousand. It is not known whether all of them receive their salaries regularly.

Some complain that "those affiliated" with Hamas receive money and assistance, while others do not, noting that a small number of employees in the health and police sectors still work, while work has stopped for others due to the war.

"I said goodbye to my wife and children and went to collect my salary!"

Several who still receive salaries or parts of them say it is not enough given the deteriorating situation in the sector, where food prices have risen dramatically, and there is a shortage of all essentials.

Kareem, who supports his wife and six children, says, "I feel despair; the salary is not enough to provide flour for a week; there is famine and exorbitant prices in the markets."

Masoud states that he recently received a text message on his wife's phone inviting him to drink tea, and his wife was astonished by the message, but he laughed and told her "this is good news; the salary has arrived."

Masoud, who works as a police officer, clarifies that the salary "does not fill the stomach; it barely allows us to buy some flour, and we receive part of it every two or three months."

Confirming, "We are with the resistance," he believes that "Hamas should have been prepared for these hellish moments. How can you ask people to endure without food and water?"

He adds, "I do not want a salary or a job; I want the war to end and to live a human life."

Abdullah (38 years old), a teacher in the north of the sector, says, "I said goodbye to my wife and children and did not tell them I was going to collect my salary."

He adds that he supports his mother and more than twenty individuals who are the wives and children of his three brothers, who were martyred near distribution centers for aid.

Abdullah received his last salary (950 shekels, or $280) in July. He says that the payment method is "exhausting, as if you are working in a mafia."