An employee of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) authorised a payment of approximately $78 million on Sunday evening to provide food, medicine, and shelter for Palestinians in Gaza.
However, within two hours, the employee’s email account—along with those of contractors working with the agency across more than 100 countries—was shut down.
The transaction was the final operation carried out by USAID before its closure.
According to New York Magazine, the exemption allowing the $78 million aid allocation to Gaza was issued due to a legal obligation under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The agreement was brokered by former Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff.
Sources within USAID have confirmed that the funds remain pending final approval, and it is unclear whether they will ultimately be released. One of the intended recipients is the International Medical Corps, a non-profit organisation running two major field hospitals in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the group warned that without immediate U.S. funding, it would be unable to continue its activities beyond the following week.
A USAID official described the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying: “At this rate, the hospitals are barely running. I’m having nightmare thoughts on when generators run out of fuel and those NICUs [neonatal units] shut down. Where will they go? No one has an answer for that. They will be left high and dry and left for dead, and that will be on the U.S. government.”
Efforts to secure further aid, including a $305 million allocation for the World Food Programme, had failed by Monday afternoon.
Employees were also unable to notify partner organisations due to the email shutdown. Last year, USAID had an annual budget of $40 billion, accounting for less than 1% of total U.S. federal spending.
By the end of the weekend, the administration had laid off 500 contractors from the humanitarian assistance office and dismissed 400 employees from the Global Health office.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk who is advising Donald Trump and some Republican lawmakers have targeted the US aid and development agency, which oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries, in increasingly strident terms, accusing it of promoting liberal causes.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government inspection teams.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, previously operated similarly at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information, including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems.
The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned because of Musk’s team’s access to sensitive information.
Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musk’s accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.
USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.
