At its best, humanitarian aid is a lifeline—keeping civilians alive in war zones, famine-struck regions, and disaster zones. But what happens when that aid, instead of alleviating suffering, ends up prolonging it? Recent history shows that humanitarian assistance, as currently structured by the United Nations and many Western organizations, is too often hijacked by the very actors responsible for the crises it seeks to resolve. Aid, to borrow from Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, has become a continuation of war by other means.
This is not an isolated failure. From Syria to Somalia, Yemen to Gaza, aid diversion is now routine—and too often enabled by the very institutions tasked with preventing it. U.N. agencies and the World Food Program (WFP), in particular, have tolerated systematic abuse of aid pipelines. Worse still, they have consistently downplayed or concealed the extent of the problem, even when their own internal reports document extensive diversion, fraud, and abuse.
In Syria, the U.N. allowed the Assad regime to dictate where aid could be delivered—channeling supplies to loyalist areas while blocking opposition zones. In Ethiopia, aid was centralized and diverted to support government troops. A senior aid worker admitted, “It was a perfect environment for aid diversion, and we created it.” In Sudan, the regime withheld travel permits to block aid from reaching opposition-held areas.
In Somalia, the WFP subcontracted militias to transport aid, enriching warlords who skimmed off profits and allowed only a fraction of supplies to reach refugee camps. Inside those camps, local “gatekeepers” ruled through violence and abuse, delivering what remained to favored groups. In Yemen, the WFP publicly claimed only 1 percent of aid was lost in Houthi-controlled areas. Internal data showed that in Sana’a alone, 60 percent of intended recipients never received anything. In Gaza, the relationship between UNRWA and Hamas has become so symbiotic that 49 percent of UNRWA employees were tied to Hamas.
These are not accidental lapses. They are part of a systemic pattern in which oppressive regimes, armed militias, and terrorist organizations use aid strategically—and are quietly accommodated by humanitarian organizations, rather than confronted.
The justifications for these arrangements vary, but the logic is always the same: flawed aid is better than no aid. Humanitarian workers—many idealistic and committed—fear that sounding the alarm will end operations altogether. Yet this silence only ensures that the aid continues to empower the very actors responsible for mass suffering.
What’s especially alarming is how little has changed, despite repeated failures. The mechanisms of diversion have evolved, becoming more sophisticated—employment schemes, militias establishing NGO fronts, financial transfers, inflated contracts—but the U.N. response remains the same: brief suspensions, minor reshuffling, and a return to business as usual. Even when diversion is acknowledged, it is rarely punished.
This reflects a deeper contradiction in the humanitarian model itself. The principle of “humanity”—delivering aid no matter what—often overrides the principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality. But aid is a resource like any other, and in war zones, resources mean leverage, power, and control. The more desperate the population, the more valuable the aid becomes to local power brokers.
In reality, most humanitarian operations now maintain covert accommodations with these power brokers. The question is no longer whether diversion exists, but whom it benefits. All too often, the answer is: those perpetuating the conflict.
This must change. A principled humanitarian response today requires three things: the willingness to secure distribution through transparent partners (including governments capable of oversight), the readiness to halt aid when diversion persists, and the courage to publicly acknowledge when existing models have failed.
Most of all, a principled humanitarian model requires confronting the economic and institutional incentives—within the U.N. and its partner ecosystem—that favor cover-up over accountability. As British academic Alex de Waal has noted, humanitarian aid has become entangled in what he calls an “iron triangle” of Western farmers, shippers, and NGOs whose incentives reward high-profile relief and quick fixes, not long-term prevention or reform.
As budgets shrink and donor patience wears thin, humanitarian organizations face an inflection point. To remain credible, they must acknowledge the scale of the problem and abandon the fiction that principled aid delivery is currently the norm. A principled humanitarian model cannot survive by empowering tyrants and terrorists. To serve humanity, aid must cease serving tyranny and terror.
Professor Netta Barak-Corren is the Haim H. Cohn chair in human rights, faculty of law, and member of the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dr. Jonathan Boxman is a health sciences and quantitative science independent researcher.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
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