Fact check: “Did the U.S. Really Send $50 M Worth of Condoms to Gaza?”
WASHINGTON D.C – During her first official white house briefing as President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Carolyn Levitt announced that Trump had prevented a “senseless waste of taxpayers’ money.” She said Trump’s team used the president’s ban on foreign aid to sabotage a plan that “would have cost taxpayers nearly $50 million for condoms in Gaza.”
Levitt’s Tuesday remarks sparked worldwide scrutiny. And the President himself gave an even more dramatic version of the story in a speech on Wednesday, saying “we identified $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas and stopped it.”But there are at least five major reasons to doubt the story if it is true.
The White House offered no evidence for the story:
Levit did not provide any evidence for his claim that there was a joint plan to spend $50 million on condoms in Gaza. And when Channi asked Levit and his associates for any evidence, a White House official pointed us to comments from the Foreign Ministry – comments which we will discuss below, that were not even supported by repeating Levit’s claim of spending $50 million on Gaza condoms, let alone proving the claim.
Over the past three years under Biden, USAID spent no money on condoms across the Middle East:
A detailed collective report published last year said that the US did not provide or distribute any condoms during the three-year years 2021, 2022 and 2023.
A report filed by the guardians on Tuesday said that the only condom provided or distributed by the US during that three-year period was given to the country of Jordan in the middle of the year 2023.
It was “a small order of injections and progestin-only contraceptive pills,” totaling approximately $46,000.
Total worldwide USAID condom spending is far less than $50 million:
According to the joint report, in the financial year 2023, USAID will make available or distribute male condoms worth about $7.1 million and female condoms worth about $1.1 million globally, most of which will be shipped to African countries.
In other words, Levit was claiming on Tuesday that the Biden administration had decided to provide six times more condoms than the global price of 2023 to a small region that has a population of about 2.1 million and this is a region that does not normally get condoms from the US.
A former senior Biden official who worked on Gaza aid issues told the media that Levit’s stories about the $50 million condom bill for Gaza were “fantasy.” The former official said: “This is a lie. He is talking nonsense.”
The State Department would not repeat Leavitt’s claim:
The White House official pointed to a series of social media posts by the Bruce during the Foreign Ministry’s press conference in which they gave specific examples of how stopping aid to tramps prevented improper spending that the Brothers said did not make the country “safer, stronger and more prosperous.
“But the Bruce did not mention the $50 million for condoms in Gaza.
Instead, the Bruce expressed regret about how much spending on condoms was stopped. He wrote: “Example 1: condoms. Stopped the improper funding of $102 million to a dealer in Gaza, which included money for abortifacients.” He did not specify how much of the $102 million funding was for abortifacients, specifically leaving it for condoms.
In a letter sent to journalists on Tuesday, the Bruce said that the organization that was supposed to get $102 million is the International Medical Corps – a youth-based organization that runs two field hospitals in Gaza.
In a statement given to the Election Commission on Wednesday, the International Medical Corps said it got around $68 million from this agency for international development to operate in Gaza from October 7, 2023, the day Hamas launched a major attack on the news.
While the International Medical Corps has publicly discussed its own public and other health services in Gaza, in addition to a range of services from cardiology to orthopedics, the organization said in a statement to Wednesday that “no US government funds were used to purchase or distribute condoms.”
The organization said the US funding paid approximately 33,000 citizens each month for “life-saving medical care” at both hospitals. The organization said Trump’s restrictions have halted American outreach to hospital services, such as performing approximately 30 life-saving surgeries daily, delivering approximately 20 babies daily, running an Emergency Situation Scheme that treats 200 patients daily, and oversaw the single-day Navjaat Gaaja hospital and running a single-day stabilization center for seriously malnourished children.
The organization said, “If the stoppage order remains in place, we will be unable to continue these activities beyond the next one or two weeks.”
Experts expressed doubt about Leavitt’s story — or simply called it wrong:
Experts on US aid to Gaza and global health aid were baffled by the claim that the US had been planning to spend $50 million on condoms in Gaza.“We have asked around, and no one is sure what this is referring to,” said Steve Fake, a spokesperson for Anera, an aid nonprofit that has partnered with USAID on a five-year, $50 million health initiative in Gaza.Fake said this Anera program has “definitely no purchase of condoms” and added: “Our whole program is $50 (million) and represents a significant portion of total US aid going to Gaza.”