Hamas facing financial and administrative crisis as revenue dries up
TEL AVIV — Hamas is facing its worst financial and administrative crisis in its four-decade history, facing stiff challenges in mustering the resources it would need to continue to fight Israel and rule Gaza.
With its coffers depleted, Hamas’s military wing can no longer adequately pay the salaries of its fighters, though it is still able to recruit teenage boys for missions like keeping lookout or placing explosives along Israeli military routes, according to Oded Ailam, who is a former high-level Israeli intelligence officer, and current Israel Defense Forces officers.
The group has also been unable to replace the well equipped tunnels and underground command centers that Israeli forces have destroyed in their bid to uproot Hamas. Before he was killed in an airstrike two months ago, Hamas military commander Mohammed Sinwar had taken refuge in a one-room hideout 30 feet below a hospital in southern Gaza. The spartan bunker was a far cry from the vast underground complex that the Israeli military said it found earlier in the war farther north, which included spacious white-tiled rooms, a blast-proof door, mechanical ventilation and ample space to accommodate weapons stockpiles.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/21/hamas-gaza-war-financial-crisis/