No evidence that $ 50 million has been appointed by the United States to buy condoms for Hamas

During a signature ceremony On Wednesday for Laken Riley Act, President Donald Trump said that his administration had “identified and arrested $ 50 million sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas”.

Karoline Leavitt, press secretary of the White House, made a similar complaint on Tuesday During his first press pointDeclaring that the Government Ministry of Effectiveness and the Budget Management and Budget Office “revealed that there were $ 50 million from taxpayers who came out to finance condoms in Gaza.” She called the alleged help “an absurd waste of taxpayers’ money”. But there is no credible evidence to support these claims.

Here is a more in -depth examination of the facts:

Complaint: The Trump administration prevented $ 50 million from being sent to the Gaza Strip to buy condoms for Hamas.

The facts: Trump and his spokesperson seemed to refer to a subsidy or a subsidy that USAID attributed to a group called the international medical profession worth 102.2 million dollars to provide medical services and traumatized in Gaza. On Wednesday, the State Department described it as an example of “blatant funding” that is not aligned with the American interests or the policies of the president.

The spokesperson for the State Department Tammy Bruce Written Tuesday on X that the agency had “prevented $ 102 million in unjustified funding to an entrepreneur in Gaza, including money for contraception” thanks to a break in foreign aid.

The officials said that the Trump administration had arrested two $ 50 million buckets “aid” for Gaza via the international MEDICAL Corps, which included: family planning programming, including emergency contraception; Sexual health, including prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections (IST); and the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents.

The $ 100 million for these programs included contraceptives, said officials, adding that condoms have always been used for family planning in USAID developing countries.

According to the BMI, “no funding from the US government has been used to obtain or distribute condoms or provide family planning services”.

The BMI said in a press release that he received $ 68,078,508 from the USAID to support its operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023. They declared that the resources had been used to operate two major land hospitals currently located in the center of Gaza – a At Deir Al Balah and one in Al Zawaida – offering a total combined capacity of more than 250 beds, including 20 in the emergency room and 170 in the surgical service. These establishments provided medical care 24 hours a day to around 33,000 civilians per month.

The BMI said that since January 2024, he has provided health care to more than 383,000 civilians who had no other access to services or treatment, including around 11,000 surgeries. According to the statistics provided by BMI, they also helped delivery of some 5,000 babies, detected 111,000 people for malnutrition, treated 2,767 for acute malnutrition and micronutrient supplements distributed to 36,000 people.

International President of Refugees Jeremy Konyndyk, who supervised the USAID COVID-19 assistance portfolio for the Biden administration, Refuge the claims of Trump and Leavitt Wednesday on X.

“USAID gets condoms for around $ 0.05 each,” he wrote. “$ 50 million would cost a billion condoms. What is happening here is not a billion condoms for Gaza. What is happening is that Doge’s brothers can not see the government’s calculation sheets apparently. »»

USAID exercise 2023 report On contraceptive and condoms, the most recent data available, notes that one country in the Middle East – Jordan – has received a small expedition of injectables and oral contraceptives worth $ 45,680 for government programs uniquely. It was the first sending of the USAID to the Middle East since the 2019 financial year.

USAID reports from the first three quarters of 2024 show that the only family planning programs financed by the Middle East agency were in Jordan and Yemen.

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The writers of the Associated Press Ellen Knickmeyer and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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Find the verifications of the AP facts here: https://apnews.com/apfactcheck.