Funding
As of 2009 the Council on Foreign Relations estimates Hamas's annual budget at $70 million.
In the early 2000s the largest backer of Hamas was Saudi Arabia, with over 50% of its funds coming from that country, mainly through Islamic charity organizations. An earlier estimate by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated a $50 million annual budget, mostly supplied by private charitable associations but with $12 million supplied directly by Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia, and a further $3 million from Iran. In 2002, a Saudi Arabian charity, the Saudi Council to Support the Palestinian Intefada run by then Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz stated the council will give the families of 102 Hamas militants killed, including eight suicide bombers, $5,340 each.
Saudi owned al-Taqwa Bank has been identified of holding money for Hamas as early as 1997. Jamie C. Zarate, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department, told Congress that 60 million was moved to Hamas accounts with Al Taqwa bank. The Al Taqwa bank has also been used to launder funds for Al Qaeda. The funding by Saudi Arabia continued despite Saudi pledges to stop funding groups such as Hamas that have used violence, and its recent denouncements of Hamas' lack of unity with Fatah. According to the US State Department, Hamas is funded by Iran, Palestinian expatriates, and "private benefactors in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states." Saudi spokesman Adel Al Jubeir said that "no Saudi government money goes to Hamas, directly or indirectly." He added that it "very likely" that "some Saudi individuals" have provided financial support to Hamas.
In 2004, reports citing unidentified U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials indicated that Saudi funding for Hamas had been curtailed and replaced by other regional sponsors. In June 2004 testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, former Treasury Department General Counsel David Aufhauser quoted "informed intelligence sources" as saying that "for whatever reason, the money going to Hamas from Saudi Arabia has substantially dried up." Aufhauser indicated that Saudi financial support "has been supplemented by money from Iran and Syria flowing through even more dangerous rejectionist groups in the West Bank." Similarly, Israeli daily Maariv quoted in 2004 an unidentified Israeli military official as saying that "for the first time in years the Saudis have begun to reduce the flow of funds to Hamas and to the Gaza Strip." This source attributes this change largely to U.S. pressure on Saudi Arabia to stem the flow of funding to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), another reported funding source for Hamas is through the 21,000 Arabs of Palestinian and Lebanese descent who live in the Foz do Iguaçu area of the tri-border region of Latin America. According to Paraguayan Interior Minister Julio César Fanego, they have donated "something between $50 and $500 million" to 16 Arab extremist groups between 1999 and 2001, in amounts ranging from $500 to $2,000.
In the late 1980s, 10% of all Hamas funding came Islamic Republic of Iran. Later, from 1993 to 2006, Iran provided Hamas with approximately $30 US million annually. More recent assessments indicate that Iranian funding has increased significantly between 2006–2009, to hundreds of millions of Euros per year. After 2009, sanctions on Iran made funding difficult, forcing Hamas instead to rely on religious donations by individuals in the West Bank, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Since June 2011 funding from the Islamic Republic of Iran has been cut to show "displeasure at Hamas's failure to hold public rallies in support of President Assad" in the face of the Syrian uprising, and funding from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has been cut so the MB can diverts funds "to support Arab Spring revolts". The shortages have meant that Gaza's 40,000 civil service and security employees were not paid July 2011.
Hamas linked charities in 2010 invested heavily in Gaza business ventures, with the condition that much of revenue stream from those ventures go to Hamas-linked charitable purposes in Gaza. Generally, Hamas and its members have increasingly dominated the Gaza economy, in particular since the 2006 Israel-led blockade of Gaza and Gaza elections.
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