A Sept. 10 report from a pro-Israel research institute exposes the nexus between nongovernmental organizations and Hamas terrorists who operate from medical facilities in Gaza. Based on 2020 documents from the Gaza Ministry of Interior and National Security, NGO Monitor concluded that Hamas “tightly monitors and restricts the activities of foreign medical NGOs,” leading to “a system in which aid is constricted and forced to serve the agenda of a terror organization under the facade of objective and impartial healthcare and humanitarian assistance.”

Though the group acknowledged NGOs’ critical roles in caring for the populace, Hamas is deeply suspicious of foreign infiltration of these entities. Backing up Hamas’s suspicions about foreign infiltration are allegations that some NGOs have sought out information about the terrorist group’s activities. These included an Egyptian delegation asking about the location of a Hamas member, an International Committee of the Red Cross questionnaire that included questions about “the presence of tunnels, weapons or explosives inside hospitals,” and a Médecins du Monde France inquiry about “the type of cement and the thickness of the hospital’s protective wall.”

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In response, the organizations “are supervised by the Ministry of Health,” including having their activities monitored and movements restricted to the hospitals where their delegations operate. The ministry warned that “resistance leadership … not engage with medical delegations in the case of resistance leaders,” and to “take caution with regard to regular members [of Hamas].”

Reports from the ministry show that Hamas keeps meticulous records of which foreign NGOs are at work in which Gazan hospitals, as well as their physical proximity to Hamas entities operating from the hospitals where they function. The ministry reported, for instance, that the ICRC “has chosen [to operate] in a wing inside Al-Shifa Hospital that is adjacent to the [Hamas] movement’s offices.” The ministry also reported that “Doctors Without Borders (MSF) France chose the only room in Abu Yousef El-Najar Hospital that has a (safe) communication landline which belongs to the positive’s activity, in order for MSF to work in it separately.” According to NGO Monitor, “the positive” is “a known term for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” Hamas’s military wing.

The ministry’s statements that Hamas members operate within various Gazan hospitals confirm accounts that have motivated Israel Defense Forces activities in medical facilities in the Gaza Strip during the conflict with Hamas. In NGO Monitor’s report, the group described that Hamas uses hospitals as “command and control centers, entry and exit points for terror tunnel infrastructure, weapons storage sites, and hubs for intelligence-gathering and surveillance.”

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From these findings, NGO Monitor assessed that the cooperation between medical NGOs and Hamas is “fundamentally inconsistent with the principle of medical neutrality in Gaza, transforming humanitarian spaces into dual-use facilities that serve both medical and military purposes.” While “these NGOs frequently condemn Israeli military actions targeting hospitals or medical facilities,” NGO Monitor said they do not “acknowledge[e] Hamas’s military activity embedded in these sites.”

NGO Monitor legal adviser Anne Herzberg told the Washington Examiner that the ministry’s reporting proves Hamas’s system is “a totalitarian dictatorship. And it definitely attests to the fact that these NGOs were probably scared.” However, she also concluded that NGO Monitor’s report “proves the extent to which [medical NGOs] knew what Hamas was doing in Gaza.”

Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and the host of the Afghanistan Project podcast.