How to Donate to Gaza from the USA: Legal Routes, OFAC, 501(c)(3) and What Actually Arrives

If you live in the United States and want to help a family in Gaza, you are probably carrying two worries at once. The first is practical: will the money get there, or will it vanish into fees, frozen accounts and middlemen? The second is quieter but just as real: could a well-meant gift get you into trouble?

Both worries are reasonable, and both have workable answers. In short: giving humanitarian help to civilians in Gaza from the US is not banned. What US law prohibits is giving value to designated groups and people. Your job as a donor is to pick a route that matches your priorities (tax deduction, speed, directness, traceability) and to check who is really on the receiving end.

This guide walks through each route a US donor actually has, what the rules say, what each route costs, and where FundGaza fits. We are a small personal initiative run from inside Gaza, so we will also be honest about what we are not.

This is general information for US-based donors as of November 2026, not legal or tax advice. Sanctions guidance and tax rules change. For large gifts, gifts through a business, or anything you are unsure about, talk to a US lawyer or tax professional.

First, the legal picture: what OFAC rules mean for you

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the US Treasury, runs American sanctions programs. Two points matter most for someone who wants to help Gaza.

Gaza is not under a blanket embargo. US restrictions here are list-based. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are designated, and so are a long list of named individuals and entities. Dealing with them is prohibited, and that includes money that reaches them indirectly through an intermediary. Ordinary civilians are not on that list because they live in Gaza.

OFAC has published guidance on humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people. That guidance, first issued in late 2023, says US persons may donate to and raise money for non-governmental organizations doing permissible humanitarian work in Gaza. It also urges donors to do their own due diligence, because designated groups have used sham charities in the past. Read the current version on OFAC's own website before a large gift. Guidance can be updated, and the source is better than any summary, including this one.

What this means in practice:

• Check names, not neighborhoods. OFAC publishes a searchable sanctions list. If an appeal comes from an organization or person you have never heard of, search it there before you give.
• Walk away from appeals that mix aid with armed groups. If a campaign praises militants, fundraises for 'the resistance', or blurs humanitarian relief with politics, do not give. No good intention makes that safe.
• Crypto is not a loophole. OFAC has said sanctions apply to virtual currency the same way they apply to dollars. We cover this in more detail in our article on whether is it legal to donate crypto to Gaza.
• Be truthful with your bank or exchange. If they ask what a transfer is for, say so plainly. Splitting payments to dodge questions, or borrowing someone else's account, is what turns a lawful gift into a suspicious one.

The 501(c)(3) question: will your gift be tax-deductible?

Many US donors assume any gift to a good cause can be written off. It cannot. In general, a US charitable deduction requires the recipient to be a qualified US charitable organization, which usually means a 501(c)(3). You also need to meet the IRS rules on itemizing and record-keeping.

That creates a simple dividing line:

• US-registered 501(c)(3) charities working in Gaza. Gifts are usually deductible for donors who qualify, and you get a receipt. You can confirm an organization's status with the IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search tool before you give.
• Personal crowdfunding campaigns (for example, a GoFundMe raising money for one family). These are generally not deductible, because the money goes to individuals, not a qualified charity. GoFundMe flags the exceptions where a registered nonprofit is the beneficiary.
• Foreign groups and individuals inside Gaza. Gifts sent directly to them are generally not deductible in the US, even if they are well documented.

FundGaza falls in the last group. We say this plainly on our about page: FundGaza is a personal humanitarian initiative, not a registered charity, and gifts are not tax-deductible. If a deduction is essential to you, a US 501(c)(3) with programs in Gaza is the better fit, and that is a perfectly good choice. Some donors split their giving: a deductible gift to a large charity, plus a smaller, direct gift to a family they can follow.

The four routes a US donor really has

1. A large US or international charity

Strengths: tax receipts, established logistics, the ability to work at scale, formal audits. Trade-offs: your gift joins a general fund. You rarely see which family it reached. Large agencies also face the same access limits at the crossings as everyone else.

This route makes the most sense if you want a deduction and are comfortable trusting an institution's reporting rather than tracing a specific purchase.

2. A personal crowdfunding campaign for a named family

Strengths: familiar card or PayPal checkout, a real family you can read about, platform rules on fraud and refunds. Trade-offs: not tax-deductible. Platform and payment-processing fees apply. Getting money from the organizer's bank account to the family inside Gaza is often the hardest step, and campaign pages rarely explain how it works.

One example is listed on our other support options page: Help Nidal Zomlot Family Rebuild Their Lives (fundraiser for the family of Nidal Zomlot, who runs FundGaza), a GoFundMe organized by a relative of the family based in Brussels. It supports a displaced family who lost their home, including three children. Read the page, check the organizer, and decide for yourself.

3. Money transfer services and remittances

Some US donors try to send money to Gaza through remittance companies or bank wires. Whether a given service currently pays out in Gaza changes with the situation on the ground, banking links and each company's compliance policy. Do not assume it works because it did last year. Ask the provider directly and expect questions about the recipient and the purpose. And remember that getting cash out inside Gaza is its own problem: worn banknotes, commissions to turn an electronic balance into cash, and shortages all eat into the amount.

4. Direct USDT on TRON (TRC-20), verified on-chain

This is the route FundGaza uses. You send USDT (a dollar-pegged stablecoin) on the TRON network to the wallet published on our site. Every transfer is public on Tronscan, so you, or anyone, can see it arrive. Our guide to how to donate USDT crypto to Gaza covers the mechanics in depth.

Strengths: you can verify receipt yourself, it skips the international banking chain, and a US donor can buy USDT on a mainstream exchange in a few steps. Trade-offs: not deductible. Network and exchange fees are fixed amounts, so they eat a large share of very small gifts. And an on-chain record proves the money moved. It does not by itself prove what it bought. That is what receipts and the spending ledger are for.

What each route costs: an honest comparison

Fees are where good intentions quietly leak. Here is what we can say with evidence, and where you should check for yourself:

• US charities: typically no fee to you beyond your card processor's. Ask about overhead if it matters to you; good charities publish it.
• Crowdfunding: check the platform's current fee page. Payment processing usually takes a percentage plus a fixed amount per gift.
• Remittances: fees and exchange-rate margins vary by provider and by day. Compare the total delivered, not just the headline fee.
• USDT to FundGaza: on how donations reach Gaza we publish our own estimates as of October 2026. A TRON network fee of roughly $2 to $4.50, paid in TRX, if you send from your own wallet. If you send from an exchange, you pay its withdrawal fee instead, which we list at about 1.5 USDT on Binance. We take no cut. Turning USDT into money that suppliers in Gaza accept also has a cost, and we will record each conversion as its own line in the ledger.

The practical lesson: on a $10 gift, a fixed fee can swallow a large share. If you plan to give small amounts often, combining them into one larger transfer each month leaves more for the family.

How to verify a USDT gift on Tronscan, step by step

Verification is the main reason to choose this route, so do it properly:

1. Copy the wallet only from the campaign's own page on fundgaza.net. Never from a screenshot, a DM, or a comment claiming to be us.
2. Check the network. Choose TRON (TRC-20) in your exchange or wallet. USDT sent on the wrong network can be lost permanently.
3. Send a small test amount first. Wait for it to show up, then send the rest.
4. Open your transaction on Tronscan. Paste your transaction ID (your exchange shows it under withdrawal history) into Tronscan's search bar.
5. Confirm three things: the status shows the transfer succeeded; the token is USDT on TRON; the receiving address matches, character for character, the one published on the campaign page.
6. Keep your record: transaction ID, date, amount and a screenshot. For a US donor this is your paper trail, even without a tax receipt.

Why the need is so urgent right now

Numbers from Gaza can go out of date within days, so we lean on the UN's own reporting. OCHA's Humanitarian Situation Report of 29 October 2026 describes families short of cash-based support, a halt in commercial deliveries that pushed flour and fresh produce prices up by more than 70 per cent in a single week, and aid partners handing out water tanks, jerry cans and tarpaulins ahead of winter. Prices and crossings change fast, which is also why we warn donors that purchases can take longer than planned.

Where your gift goes with FundGaza

We run two founding campaigns. Our Water Relief Project aims to buy clean water for displaced families. Our Food Basket Project aims to buy essential food from suppliers inside Gaza. The route will be the same for both: once USDT arrives, we will convert it into a form local suppliers accept, buy the goods locally, and publish each distribution in the transparency log with receipts where they exist.

To be straight about where we stand: our public spending ledger is just starting, and when this was written it had no recorded spending entries yet. Judge us by what appears there over time, not by promises in an article.

Red flags for US donors

• A wallet sent to you privately. Real campaigns publish one wallet in one place. A 'new address' in your DMs is a scam until proven otherwise.
• Pressure and countdowns. Urgency is real in Gaza, but fraudsters fake it. A legitimate appeal will still be there in ten minutes while you check.
• Tax-deductibility claims without a US registration. If someone says a gift is deductible, ask for the legal name and look it up on the IRS search tool.
• No way to verify anything. No public ledger, no transaction records, no named organizer: no gift.
• Political or armed-group language. Humanitarian appeals talk about water, food, shelter and medicine. Leave anything else.

A note for Muslim donors on zakat and sadaqah

Many US Muslims want to give their zakat to Gaza. The eight categories of zakat recipients named in the Quran (9:60) include the poor and the needy, which covers many families in Gaza today. Whether a particular campaign is a suitable channel for zakat, though, depends on details: whether zakat money is kept apart from general donations, and whether it reaches eligible recipients in full. This article does not issue a ruling. Ask a scholar you trust, and ask any campaign, us included, how it handles zakat before you send. Sadaqah has fewer conditions and can go to any of these routes.

Choosing your route

If you need a tax deduction, choose a verified US 501(c)(3). If you want a familiar checkout and a named family, a crowdfunding campaign you have checked yourself is a good path. If you want to see your gift land and follow what it buys, a direct USDT transfer to a campaign with a public wallet and ledger gives you that. Plenty of donors combine them.

If FundGaza is the right fit for you, you can donate USDT verified on-chain in a few minutes, or start from our main page to donate to Gaza now. Check us first. That is the whole point.