President Donald Trump on Wednesday boasted that his administration had blocked $50 million that would be spent on condoms in Gaza – which in turn would be made into bombs by Hamas.
Trump made the eye-popping claim during a bill signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act.
It was his first big East Room gathering since being sworn-in last Monday and his first public event since his administration’s about-face on a federal funding freeze that created chaos on Tuesday.
‘We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,’ he told the audience.
‘In that process we identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas, $50 million,’ Trump said. ‘And you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs.’
Trump was repeating the same figure – $50 million – that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt divulged to reporters Tuesday, during her first press briefing of the Trump 2.0 administration.
‘DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be $50 taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza – that is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money,’ Leavitt proclaimed.
A Trump White House official walked back Leavitt’s statement on Tuesday to the Independent, saying the $50 million was part of a larger aid package for medical services for wartorn Gaza.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday made an eye-popping claim about $50 million in taxpayer dollars being allocated for condoms in Gaza – which he said would be used to make bombs
In 2018 there were reports of Hamas fighters using condoms – purchased at local convenience stores – to fly incendiary items over the Gaza-Israel border to set fire to farmland and nature preserves
The figure was part of two equal ‘buckets’ of foreign aid to be given to the International Medical Corps, The Independent said.
As for condom bombs, in 2018 Bloomberg reported the threat of condoms carrying explosives over the Gaza-Israel border that were made by Hamas fighters using prophylactics purchased at local pharmacies.
The condoms – sometimes several tied together – flew gas-soaked rags or explosive devices over the border, in order to set fire to Israeli farmland or nature preserves.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s inquiry on whether the flaming condoms have been used in the current Gaza war, which started after Hamas waged a terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
During the 2018 condom assault, Israel said 6,000 acres of countryside were destroyed by condom, kite and helium balloon.
Some of the fires burned for longer than 10 hours, Israel said at the time.
