The Trump administration claimed in late January that the Biden administration was about to send 3.3 billion condoms to the Gaza Strip, which the White House called a “preposterous waste.”
But the condoms were actually meant to go to Gaza Province in Mozambique, which has the third-highest number of HIV cases in the world, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
“The president should be sure which Gaza he means before talking,” suggested Jaime Jose Tamele, director of a health center in the Gaza province.
The report noted that Trump's mix-up had baffled citizens of the Gaza Province who were struggling with USAID cuts for critical healthcare infrastructure in their country.
$50 million taxpayer dollars in condoms
In her first press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged that millions of US taxpayer dollars were funding contraceptive measures in the Gaza Strip.
“There was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt told reporters in late January.
US Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk said in a post on X/Twitter that the condoms were just the "tip of the iceberg."
Later on, US President Donald Trump doubled Leavitt's number and said that Hamas uses the condoms to create improvised IEDs.
“Think of it,” he told reporters in late January, “$100 million in condoms to Hamas.”
In a February press briefing, a reporter informed Musk that the Gaza condom story was inaccurate.
“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” Musk said, as quoted by CNN. “So, nobody’s going to bat a thousand. I mean, any – you know, we will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
However, he added that he was “not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere."
However, $50 million worth of condoms were never headed for the Gaza Province, either.
CNN reported that in 2023, Mozambique received some $5.4 million worth of non-condom contraceptives from USAID.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Gaza Province received condoms worth $27,021 with funding from the US and other donors, citing an aid official with knowledge of the program.
The report noted that Trump's proposed $100 million figure would purchase nearly 1,600 condoms for each citizen of the pre-war population of 2.1 million people who live in the Gaza Strip.
Back in the Gaza Strip, a Hamas official told The Wall Street Journal that the terrorist organization had no need or use for the condoms.
“We Palestinians don’t actually trust anything coming from the US."
The report noted that White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not answer questions regarding the mix up, but instead responded that Trump was eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse" from the federal government.