Israel accuses World Vision's Gaza director of diverting cash to Hamas

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Israel accuses World Vision's Gaza director of diverting cash to Hamas

Charity defends Mohammad El Halabi, who Israeli security forces
say confessed during detention to being Hamas member

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
Thursday 4 August 2016 13.47 BST

Israeli security forces have arrested a senior official of one of the world’s largest Christian charities, accusing him of funnelling tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, including £80,000 from British donations.

Mohammad El Halabi, director of the Gaza branch of World Vision, is alleged to have led a double life as a senior figure in the Islamist organisation and used his position “to divert the humanitarian organisation’s funds and resources from the needy to benefit of Hamas’s terrorist and military activities”.

According to the allegations from Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, the money given by British donors was used to build a military base, dig military tunnels and pay salaries in Hamas’s military wing.

Other donations were allegedly transferred to buy weapons for Hamas in the Sinai during the period that Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/04/israel-world-visions-gaza-director-diverting-cash-hamas-mohammed-el-halabi

[Little Tich]

1. As yet, there's no evidence to go with the allegations...

I suppose we'll know more about what actually happened in the future...

[shira]

2. Australia suspends World Vision funding over allegations its Gaza representative funneled millions t

Australia suspends World Vision funding over allegations its Gaza representative funneled millions to Hamas


SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Friday it was suspending funding for relief group World Vision's operations in the Palestinian Territories after allegations its Gaza representative funneled millions of dollars to the Islamist militant group Hamas.

Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision's manager of operations in Gaza, was arrested by Israel on June 15 while crossing the border into the enclave, which is under the de facto rule of Hamas, a group on Israeli and U.S. terrorism blacklists. A senior Israeli security official on Thursday said Halabi, who has run the group's Gaza operations since 2010, had been under extended surveillance and had confessed to siphoning off some $7.2 million a year to Hamas.

World Vision said it was shocked by the claims, and a Hamas spokesman said the group had no connection with Halabi. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) called the allegations "deeply troubling" and said in a statement that it was "urgently seeking more information from World Vision and the Israeli authorities."

"We are suspending the provision of further funding to World Vision for programs in the Palestinian Territories until the investigation is complete," it said. Israel welcomed the decision and said it has passed on details of the case to a number of countries from where money is being sent to Gaza.

http://www.businessinsider.com/australia-suspends-world-vision-over-hamas-funding-2016-8

[shira]

3. Ex-Shin Bet chief: World ‘hideously naive’ about widespread diversion of aid to fund Hamas

Avi Dichter, head of Knesset Defense Committee, says misuse of charity moneys runs much wider than World Vision’s tens of millions, claims ‘almost 100%’ of UN refugee workers in Gaza are Hamas members


“World Vision is only a small example,” Dichter said, declaring that other, similar organizations “know very well that they are funding Hamas.”

“The fact that the donating world, which is recruited to help refugees and the needy, doesn’t understand that its cash is being pumped for terror uses… it is a naive world to the point of being hideous.”

Muhammad Halabi, a member of Hamas and manager of the World Vision charity's operations in the Gaza Strip, was indicted on August 4, 2016, for diverting the charity's funds to the terrorist organization. (Shin Bet)
Muhammad Halabi, a member of Hamas and manager of the World Vision charity’s operations in the Gaza Strip, who was indicted on August 4, 2016, for diverting the charity’s funds to the terrorist organization. (Shin Bet)

“When you look at groups like the UN and enlightened countries that, with well-established worldviews, fall into the trap set for them by Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Dichter, “it just is amazing to see the extent and power with which it plays out year after year after year.”

The UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency — the UN group that deals exclusively with Palestinian refugees — employs 30,000 clerks for five million Palestinian refugees, he said. And “it is clear that the number of UNRWA clerks who are working for Hama is close to 100%.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-shin-bet-chief-world-hideously-naive-about-widespread-diversion-of-aid-to-fund-hamas/

[Little Tich]

4. World Vision: Israeli Claim That Hamas Siphoned Funds From Gazan Charity Doesn't Add Up

Source: Haaretz

Israel says World Vision's Gaza director funneled $7.2m a year to Hamas for five years in a row, but Christian organization says sum surpasses its budget for a decade.

The international charity World Vision says that the sums its Gaza Strip director is accused of funneling to Hamas are impossibly high. The director, Mohammed Halabi, is currently in Israeli detention.

According to the Christian charity, which denies the allegations, the sum Halabi is accused of siphoning off to Hamas' military wing far surpasses the organization's actual budget for the past decade.  

As first published last Thursday, the Shin Bet security agency accuses the charity of transferring about 60% of its Gaza budget to the Hamas military arm each year. Halabi, it says, has confessed to rerouting about $7.2 million a year to Hamas over the past five years.

But World Vision Germany spokeswoman Silvia Holten said in Germany on Monday that the charity's Gaza budget totaled $22.5 million in the last decade – well under the Shin Bet estimate of Halabi's alleged transfers to Hamas.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.735769