Huckabee Urges UN ‘Accountability’ After Study Finds Widespread Aid Diversion in Global Conflict Zones

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is calling for “accountability” from the United Nations and its “massive funding,” asserting the organization is “either incompetent or corrupt,” after a new academic study found that aid diversion is a common and persistent issue in war zones around the world.

The research, titled “Aiding Who? Humanitarian Aid and the Continuation of War by Other Means,” was authored by Netta Barak Corren, the Haim H. Cohn Chair in Human Rights at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law, and Jonathan Boxman, an independent researcher specializing in health and quantitative sciences. It was published on August 5 on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

The paper analyzed records from humanitarian organizations operating in eight prolonged conflicts — Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Gaza Strip. The authors argue that the “humanity-first” aid model enables diversion not as an occasional violation, but as a problem “deeply embedded” at every stage of the process.

Groups examined included UNRWA, USAID, and Human Rights Watch, among others. The study highlighted repeated patterns of misuse and exploitation of aid systems in all the regions surveyed.

In Somalia, the World Food Programme reportedly relied on three clans to transport, store, and secure aid. According to the paper, these clans diverted about 30% of the supplies and used profits to fund armed militias.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban is said to impose a 10–15% tax on humanitarian organizations and regularly seize aid through tactics such as placing loyalists in key roles within the aid agencies.

During the Syrian civil war from 2011 to 2024, the authors say, aid was frequently directed to areas loyal to then-president Bashar al-Assad while being denied to rebel-controlled regions. This was reportedly enabled by aid groups allowing the regime to dictate which locations were deemed “safe” for delivery — a pattern the paper claims also exists in Sudan through “denial of aid through bureaucratization.”

Regarding Gaza, the authors say that in more than seven decades of operations there, UNRWA has never publicly acknowledged aid diversion or implemented measures to prevent it, despite “abundant evidence” to the contrary.

That evidence includes an internal Hamas document instructing that 25% of all aid to the Strip be seized for resale, as well as a 20% tax imposed on all goods entering Gaza since 2016. The report also cites the involvement of some UNRWA staff in the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in southern Israel as proof of “intertwining” between the agency and Hamas, enabling the terror group to use resources as it wished.

The study concludes that the existing aid delivery system has failed and must be replaced with a new model “which seeks to truly alleviate human suffering,” incorporating robust safeguards against diversion.

The authors limited their scope to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, excluding wars in Europe such as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and earlier 20th- and 21st-century European wars.