Hamas has financed its governing apparatus through local taxes and fees and by exercising control over businesses and commerce in Gaza. A 2011 Washington Institute analysis estimated that Hamas could raise as much as $250 million a year through taxes and fees; the figure is an analyst’s estimate for that period, not an audited budget.
Taxes, permits, and control of commerce
Ehud Yaari’s analysis of Hamas’s Gaza economy describes charges on cigarettes, vehicle registration, business licenses, goods entering from Israel, and goods moving through tunnels under the Egypt border. It also describes Hamas regulation of businesses and the leasing of government machinery to contractors. These mechanisms allowed Hamas to draw revenue from ordinary economic activity as it tightened its control of Gaza.
These figures and mechanisms should be read in their time context. The 2011 estimate does not establish Hamas’s current revenue, and published estimates are not audited accounts. Hamas’s taxation also helped make economic complaints a focus of public protest: the March 2019 “We Want to Live” demonstrations included anger over taxes, as Human Rights Watch documented.
Separate aid to residents from Hamas revenue
International assistance and salary support to Gaza have served civilian needs and public services. Hamas’s control of local administration gives it influence over the environment in which money and goods circulate, but that fact alone does not show that every aid transfer went to Hamas or its military wing.
Claims of diversion should identify the shipment, date, and evidence. The Washington Institute’s 2011 analysis discusses Hamas’s economic control and revenue channels; it does not substantiate treating all aid entering Gaza as diverted. Hamas’s command of local institutions is covered in the page on governance and dissent, while the smuggling role of tunnel routes is addressed in the tunnel-network explainer.