The Global Sumud Flotilla, a coalition of activist vessels organized under the banner of delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, was intercepted by the Israeli Navy on May 19, 2026, and more than 400 participants were detained. On the same day, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned four individuals connected to the flotilla’s steering committee, establishing through primary government documentation that the operation was organized by groups with direct ties to Hamas.
Among the organizations behind the current and previous flotillas were groups linked to Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated armed networks: the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, the Union of Good, the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), Samidoun, Harakat Sawad Misr (HASM), and the Hamas International Relations Bureau.
As the groups involved are too numerous to cover in a single article, this first installment of a two-part series examines the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation and the Union of Good.
The IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation — İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı — was established in Germany in 1992 to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims and officially registered as an NGO in Istanbul in 1995. IHH is a government-organized NGO (GONGO) closely linked to the Turkish ruling party under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, IHH operates with “two hats”: one as a legitimate humanitarian organization and the other as “a radical, jihadi and pro-Hamas organization with involvement in terrorist attacks.”
According to a December 2021 article by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, IHH transferred funds to Hamas’s military wing “systematically and for years,” with IHH’s Gaza branch head Mehmet Kaya delivering cash from Turkey directly to senior Hamas officials Ismail Haniyeh and Raed Saad. Israeli intelligence and open-source reporting document IHH’s role in weapons procurement and construction of Hamas training facilities in Gaza.
Israel designated IHH as a terrorist entity in 2008 primarily because of its membership in the Union of Good, a Muslim Brotherhood coalition of charities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for raising funds for Hamas. IHH leaders met with Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus, held joint press conferences with Hamas spokesmen, attended a Hamas rally in Gaza, and hosted a Union of Good congress in Istanbul, during which IHH transferred tens of thousands of dollars to two Hamas-affiliated charities within the Union.
Germany banned IHH in 2010. Then-Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière stated, “Under the cover of humanitarian aid, the IHH has been supporting for a long time, and with considerable financial resources, so-called social groups which have to be seen as connected to Hamas.” The German ban followed findings that IHH had channeled an estimated €6.6 million to Hamas.
France’s former chief counterterrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, who testified during the 2001 millennium plot trial in U.S. federal court, stated that IHH had “clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad,” including logistical support for members of the Fateh Kamel cell, a network connected to al-Qaeda. Ahmed Ressam, a follower of the network, was arrested in 1999 while en route to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Bruguière stated that IHH “was basically helping al-Qaeda when bin Laden started to want to target US soil.”
Turkish security forces also raided IHH facilities in 1997, reportedly confiscating weapons, explosives, and instructions for constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
On May 31, 2010, IHH organized the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. When Israeli commandos boarded the lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, to enforce the naval blockade, they encountered violent resistance. Of the 53 injured passengers, including 23 who were seriously wounded, nearly all were identified as IHH activists or individuals affiliated with Turkish Islamist networks. According to an Israeli intelligence assessment, none belonged to Western human rights or pro-Palestinian organizations. The report concluded that this was “testimony that human rights activists who joined the flotilla out of humanitarian considerations took no part in the violent confrontation initiated by IHH.” Ten passengers were killed, and another later died after spending four years in a coma.
Beyond Gaza, IHH’s record includes allegations of helping smuggle weapons to militant factions in Syria during the 1990s and 2000s and assisting Chechen fighters in transferring funds to al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry specifically cited IHH and the Mavi Marmara while characterizing the 2026 flotilla as being organized by “violent” Turkish groups whose purpose was “to serve Hamas, to divert attention from Hamas’s refusal to disarm, and to obstruct progress on President Trump’s peace plan.”
Hamas’s leadership created the Union of Good in late 2000, shortly after the start of the Second Intifada, specifically to facilitate the transfer of funds to Hamas. Based in Saudi Arabia, the Union operates as a broker, channeling money between a network of charitable organizations and Hamas-controlled entities in the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. Treasury designated the Union of Good on November 12, 2008, under Executive Order 13224, which targets individuals and organizations providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorism.
Among the Union’s primary financiers were organizations already designated under E.O. 13224 for supporting Hamas. These included Interpal in the United Kingdom, the Al-Aqsa Foundation, the Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP) in France, the Association de Secours Palestinien (ASP) in Switzerland, the Palestinian Association in Austria (PVOE), and the Sanabil Association for Relief and Development in Lebanon.
The network facilitated the transfer of tens of millions of dollars annually to Hamas-managed associations.
A 2007 Union of Good website listed 54 participating organizations across the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Some of the transferred funds reportedly compensated the families of suicide bombers. The Al-Salah Society, designated in August 2007 as a key Hamas support node, employed members of Hamas’s military wing and supported Hamas-affiliated combatants during the First Intifada. Documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces reportedly confirmed that the Union of Good was aware donations were reaching the families of suicide bombers.
The Union’s founder and board chairman was Youssef Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood scholar and former Al Jazeera host known for fatwas condoning suicide bombings against Israelis and for advocating the spread of sharia law into Europe and America. Board member Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, a Yemen-based Hamas fundraiser designated in 2004 for supporting al-Qaeda, delivered a fundraising speech at a 2006 Hamas conference where crowds pledged millions of riyals. The Union’s secretary general simultaneously served as vice chairman of Interpal and, as of mid-2007, sat on the Hamas executive committee under Khaled Meshaal.
A 2025 report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Hamas fundraising in South Africa found that Ebrahim Gabriels, director of the Al-Quds Foundation South Africa, served on the Union’s board. Imtiaz Sooliman, later appointed to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s National Dialogue, founded Gift of the Givers, which became a Union of Good member organization in November 2002. Before founding Gift of the Givers, Sooliman established the South African branch of the Al-Aqsa Foundation in 1991, an organization later sanctioned by the United States in 2003.
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The Union links directly to the flotilla through IHH. The Netherlands-based Israa Charitable Foundation, also a Union of Good member, reports directly to Hamas’s military wing and generates revenue for Hamas under the guise of legitimate charitable work.
