Judicial Watch: USAID Won’t Reveal Aid Recipients in Gaza

Court Hearing Scheduled March 7, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to hide the identities of recipients of $27 million in grants awarded to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees” that were designated for use in Gaza.

A status conference on the lawsuit is scheduled for March 7, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET before Judge Reggie B. Walton of U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. 

On October 7, 2023, Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization—invaded southwest Israel, killing over a thousand people and kidnapping hundreds of others. 

Judicial Watch sued in July 2024 after the USAID failed to respond to an April 2, 2024, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:24-cv-02159)) that asks for:

• All records identifying the recipients of USAID funding under the $7,000,000 grant allocation awarded on or about November 15, 2023, and associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.
• All proposals, applications, scope of work documents, or similar records related to any grant award or sub-award associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.

USAID has produced records but refuses to disclose what organizations received the money.

USAID justifies its secrecy as protecting trade secrets, financial information, and privacy:

(b)(4) Program design elements, technical approaches, detailed implementation plans, and related financial information is business confidential information. If released, the availability of this information to the public will cause substantial harm to awardee’s competitive position in the private voluntary organization community.

(b)(6) Parties to the conflict in Gaza have specifically targeted and killed aid workers, targeted relief agency operations and targeted and destroyed health facilities and other civilians targets. Due to highly challenging and unpredictable operating environments for humanitarian organizations, this exemption is required to protect the employees and beneficiaries of the NGOs working in Gaza from harassment and violence. 

Disclosure of the name of the NGO would allow third‐parties to determine the identities of the employees and beneficiaries. 

(b)(6) Personal information to include names, job titles and emails due to safety & security concerns

On November 15, 2023, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, a component of the USAID, issued a $7 million grant for “multisectoral response in Gaza.” The grant was awarded to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees.” The same day a “continuation” grant of $20 million was also issued for “multisectoral response.” USAID reported that over $282 million was obligated to the West Bank and Gaza in fiscal year 2023. 

President Trump recently fired Paul Martin, USAID inspector general, after he published a report that was critical of the Trump administration’s pause on aid. It was recently discovered that USAID provided “millions of dollars in funding to extremist groups tied to designated terrorist organizations and their allies, according to a report published by Middle East Forum, a U.S. think tank.” 

In July 2024, the Office of the Inspector General for USAID issued a report titled “Assessment of USAID’s Oversight Policies to Prevent the Diversion of Assistance to Hamas and Other

Terrorist Organizations” in which it states:

The USAID Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) provides independent oversight of USAID’s programs, operations, and personnel and haspreviously identified USAID-funded assistance to Gaza as being at high risk for diversion and misuse.

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Regarding the UN’s processes for vetting their own staff, USAID Administrator Samantha Power noted—following allegations that officials working for UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] engaged in the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel—“obviously the vetting is something that has to be significantly strengthened.”

“Americans have a right to know who in Gaza is getting our money from USAID. It is shocking that Marco Rubio’s State Department is hiding this information,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “Transparency on USAID’s Gaza funding could be critical to protecting the national security of the U.S. and Israel.”

Judicial Watch also recently sued USAID for records regarding waste, fraud and abuse tied to aid money sent to Ukraine.

In 2018, Judicial Watch obtained State Department documents showing top Soros representatives in Romania collaborating with the State Department in a program jointly funded by, among others, Soros’s Open Society Foundations – Romania and USAID, called the “Open Government Partnership.” 

Additional State Department records uncovered in 2018 showed USAID funding for George Soros’s left-wing nonprofit organizations in Albania. The documents dealt primarily with the activities of Soros’ top operative in Albania, Andri Dobrushi, the director of Open Society Foundation-Albania, who was actively engaged in channeling funding to what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls Soros’ “mercenary army.” The documents showed U.S. grant money flowing through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that profess to promote “civil society,” while in fact attacking traditional, pro-American groups, governments and policies.

Other records related to the USAID’s activities in Albania showed that the Obama administration sent U.S. taxpayers’ funds to a group backed by Soros, which used the money to fund left-wing political activities in Albania, including working with the country’s socialist government to push for highly controversial judicial “reform.” The records also detailed how the Soros operation helped the State Department review grant applications from other groups for taxpayer funding.

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/usaid-wont-reveal-aid-recipients/