Hamas is preparing to exploit the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage as cover for a large-scale fundraising and smuggling operation aimed at moving cash and gold into the Gaza Strip, Israeli public broadcaster KAN News reported, citing Palestinian sources familiar with the plan.

The Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that draws millions of Muslims to Saudi Arabia, begins on the evening of May 24 and runs through Friday, May 29. The sheer scale of movement during the pilgrimage — and the difficulty Saudi and regional authorities face in monitoring it — makes the season uniquely suited for the discreet transfer of funds and assets, the sources told KAN.

According to the report, Hamas operatives intend to solicit donations from pilgrims under a humanitarian or religious guise, collecting both cash and jewelry. The assets would then be smuggled out of Saudi Arabia into Egypt, and from Egypt into Gaza, using a network of intermediaries.

Once the funds reach Egypt, the sources said, they would be laundered or “redirected” through a mix of methods designed to obscure their origin and final destination. Those methods include electronic transfers, digital wallets, exchange companies, informal money-transfer systems such as the hawala network, and the use of front men to break large sums into smaller amounts that draw less scrutiny.

The plan, as described, fits a pattern Israeli and Western counterterrorism officials have documented for years. Treasury Department designations issued in October 2024 accused Hamas of operating “sham and front charities that falsely claim to help civilians in Gaza,” and estimated that the group was bringing in as much as $10 million a month through such donations as of early last year. Israeli intelligence officials, speaking anonymously to Bloomberg in early 2024, put the figure even higher, at $8 million to $12 million a month, mostly through online channels.

In June 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned Filistin Vakfi, a Turkey-based charity, for raising funds for Hamas’s military wing, calling Turkey “a hub for Hamas’s clandestine financial operations.” A separate Italian-based outfit, ABSPP, was designated for funneling at least $4 million to Hamas over a decade under the guise of humanitarian work.

The Hajj scheme described in the KAN report would mark an effort to tap a different and harder-to-track stream: in-person donations during a religious gathering, converted into portable assets like gold, and moved through the same informal financial corridors that have long shielded Hamas funding from Western oversight.

Saudi authorities, who manage the pilgrimage and screen attendees through a centralized visa system, have not publicly commented on the report.

The fundraising report comes as Hamas struggles to fill its own top political post. The terror group announced Saturday night that its internal leadership election had ended without a result, and that another round of voting would be held in the coming period.

The race is widely expected to come down to two figures: Khaled Mashal, the veteran Hamas leader based abroad who previously chaired the group’s political bureau, and Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas politician who has been a central figure in cease-fire negotiations.

Hamas has been without a permanent head of its political wing since October 2024, when Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. The vacancy is one of many created by an unprecedented Israeli decapitation campaign over the past two years that has eliminated much of the group’s senior military and political leadership.

Taher al-Nunu, a media advisor to Hamas, told Al Jazeera that the wave of Israeli assassinations had forced the organization into a sweeping restructuring. Vacant positions, he said, would be filled through the movement’s “consultative mechanism and silent elections.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)