As US President Donald J. Trump and members of his "Board of Peace" pledged billions of dollars for "relief and reconstruction" in the Gaza Strip, two recent public opinion polls show that most Palestinians are still concerned about widespread corruption in Palestinian society.
This concern should sound alarm bells for the Trump Administration and donor countries if they are about to invest billions of dollars in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are loudly warning international donors that Palestinian leaders are not trustworthy in handling money.
According to polls conducted by the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability -- a Palestinian civil society organization that seeks to combat corruption and promote integrity, transparency and accountability in Palestinian society -- 57% of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expect the level of corruption to remain or increase in the aftermath of the war that Hamas launched on October 7, 2023.
The polls found that 90% of the Palestinians consider so-called anti-corruption efforts (by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas) insufficient. They attributed this failure primarily to weak transparency in state institutions, weak political will to hold corrupt individuals accountable, the weak deterrent effect of applied penalties, and the absence of officials serving as role models in upholding integrity and safeguarding public resources. Sixty-one percent of the Palestinians, in addition, said they believed that the level of corruption increased in 2025, and expected it to rise in 2026.
The results of the latest surveys do not come as a surprise. Other polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research have consistently shown that more than 80% of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip believe that there is corruption in institutions of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
This disclosure is important: the Palestinian Authority is expected to play a significant role in the future management of the Gaza Strip. Recently, Nickolay Mladenov, High Representative for the "Board of Peace," announced the establishment of a "Liaison Office" by the PA for communication and coordination regarding the board's activities in the Gaza Strip. The newly established National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which is supposed to be an independent body of apolitical technocrats, is dominated by officials affiliated with the PA and its ruling Fatah faction.
Under PA President Mahmoud Abbas, many Palestinians believe corruption has deepened rather than receded. Common practices include wasta (nepotism/favoritism), misuse of public funds, and the enrichment of a political elite while the general population faces economic hardship. Widespread disenchantment with the PA's corruption was a primary factor in Hamas's victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council election of 2006 (the last election held), as the terror group campaigned on a platform of "clean governance" and "reform."
For the past 33 years, the international community has failed to track the flow and use of aid money donated to the Palestinians, enabling high-level corruption. Tens of billions of dollars in international aid given to the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip have been lost to corruption, siphoned off by terror groups or mismanaged by the PA leadership.
Since October 2023 alone, Hamas has reportedly generated an estimated $500 million by seizing humanitarian aid trucks and selling supplies to Gaza residents at inflated prices.
Corruption, mismanagement and diversion of aid have repeatedly undermined reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip and played a major role in preventing aid from reaching ordinary Palestinians. Cement and construction materials intended for civilian housing have repeatedly ended up being used for Hamas's terror tunnels and military infrastructure. Resources that donors believed were helping build homes and schools were instead strengthening Hamas and other terror groups. Much of the donor money has been swallowed by corruption, political patronage, and the militarization of Palestinian society.
The Gaza Strip has become the only place in the world where a terror group can repeatedly wage war -- funded by the international community -- while that same international community pays to rebuild the battlefield afterward, possibly for the next war.
The people of the Gaza Strip urgently need humanitarian assistance, housing, infrastructure, and economic opportunity. However, pouring money into the territory without strict safeguards will not help those residents.
For decades, the Gaza Strip has been one of the most heavily funded territories in the world in terms of international aid per capita. Yet despite the enormous financial injections, the Gaza Strip remains impoverished, unstable, and dominated by Hamas and other terrorist groups. International aid has empowered a governing system that prioritizes rockets over reconstruction. While donors thought they were funding hospitals and schools, Hamas was appropriating enormous resources and investing them in weapons, military infrastructure, and preparation for the next confrontation with Israel.
If the "Board of Peace" truly wants to help the Palestinians, it must abandon the illusion that money alone will solve the problem. Any serious reconstruction effort must begin with extremely uncompromising conditions: tracking and full transparency over how funds are spent, strict monitoring of construction materials, and a clear demand that Hamas and all other terror groups lay down their weapons and permanently exit the scene. The assumption that writing big checks will somehow produce different results has collapsed in the face of reality.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
