BRUSSELS – In Brussels today, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo convened a roundtable with officials from international non-governmental organizations to discuss the facilitation of legitimate humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.
During the roundtable, Deputy Secretary Adeyemo underscored the United States’ commitment to ensuring that humanitarian assistance reaches the people of Gaza, a commitment he has reiterated throughout his trip to Europe, including in meetings with counterparts. Roundtable participants raised challenges in delivering aid in Gaza and access to financial services. Deputy Secretary Adeyemo shared how Hamas has raised funds through entities that present themselves outwardly as charities but are in fact fronts for Hama’s fundraising. Deputy Secretary Adeyemo underscored the importance of denying Hamas’s access to funds following its heinous terrorist attacks against the people of Israel, and Treasury’s commitment to ensuring that U.S. sanctions do not stand in the way of legitimate humanitarian activities in Gaza, and to working proactively with the private sector and humanitarian actors to make sure humanitarian activities continue.
Treasury continues to support the flow of vital humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people under existing authorizations for humanitarian-related activity. As Deputy Secretary Adeyemo discussed during the roundtable, all U.S. sanctions programs, including Treasury’s counterterrorism sanctions, have carveouts to protect the flow of humanitarian assistance to civilians. These authorizations remain in full effect. This effort builds on Treasury’s findings from its 2021 Sanctions Review, which Deputy Secretary Adeyemo led, as well as Treasury’s efforts at the United Nations to adopt humanitarian carveouts for UN sanctions and its work to address financial sector de-risking as outlined in Treasury’s 2023 De-Risking Strategy. At the same time, Treasury has acted to identify and designate sham charities to protect the critical NGO and humanitarian sector from diversion and abuse.
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