Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision’s manager of operations in Gaza, is accused of having siphoned off about $7.2m a year – around 60 percent of the organisation’s Gaza funding – to pay Hamas fighters, buy arms, pay for its activities and build fortifications
The trial has begun of a manager working for U.S.-headquartered Christian charity World Vision accused of funneling millions of dollars to Islamist militant group Hamas.
Mohammad El Halabi was arrested by Israel on June 15 while crossing the border into Gaza, World Vision said in a statement. He was charged by Israeli authorities on Thursday.
He had run the organization’s Gaza operations since 2010.
According to Israel’s Shin Bet security service, El Halabi diverted around $7.2 million of World Vision money to Hamas each year. That is the equivalent of 60 percent of the charity’s total annual funding for Gaza.
Some 40 percent of the funds aimed at civilian projects — some $1.5 million a year — were “given in cash” to Hamas combat units, according to a statement issued by the Shin Bet.
Some of the money raised to support injured children in the enclave had been diverted to Hamas families by “fraudulently listing their children as wounded,” according to the agency.
“Money designated for psychological support, education and health in Gaza … was used to pay the families of Hamas terrorists,” it added.
A lawyer appointed by World Vision to represent El Halabi told NBC News that his client denied the charges against him.
“He told me he never, ever transferred any money to Hamas and he has never been a Hamas member,” Muhamad Mahmud said.
The lawyer added that El Halabi had been denied access to a lawyer for 21 days and was badly beaten while in custody.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai called the case a “grave incident.”
He called on World Vision — which has operated in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank since 1975 — to “assume responsibility and set your house in order.”
Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and has fought three wars against Israel since it overran the coastal territory in 2007, is designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
World Vision said in a statement it was “shocked to learn of these charges against Mohammad.”
It added that it Gaza operations have been subject to regular internal and independent audits, independent evaluations, and internal controls.
“We will carefully review any evidence presented to us and will take appropriate actions based on that evidence,” the statement added. “We continue to call for a fair legal process.”
The incident prompted Australia’s government to suspend its funding for World Vision’s operations in the Palestinian Territories.
The country’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.”
Mohammad El-Halabi’s trial is expected to yield important information about what happened to, among other donations, Australian public money given to World Vision, as Australia had given the charity around $5 million for humanitarian work in Gaza over the past five years.
Australia froze funding last month after El-Halabi, World Vision’s local director, was charged by Israeli authorities with directing millions to Hamas. He was said to have diverted up to $9.4 million a year over more than five years, intended for the needy, to fill the coffers of Hamas.
El-Halabi didn’t enter a plea on Tuesday, but did learn that his trial will take place behind closed doors, in view of the security-related sensitivity of the charges. Human rights organisations are claiming that this is unacceptable.
“It should be public and allow observers to attend and to see what’s happening,” Sari Bashi, director of Human Rights Watch in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, told The AJN, voicing a lack of confidence in Israeli closed-door hearings. “This would allow him and his lawyers to get a fair trial.”
She added: “There’s a lot of damage to World Vision’s reputation and therefore people should be to see and hear the trial.”
Dahlia Scheindlin, a left-leaning Israeli analyst, told The AJN she considers the closed-door arrangement “disturbing”.
Kevin Jenkins, the president of World Vision, demanded an open trial just before the court decided otherwise. “A trial is legitimate if it is transparent,” he told Agence France-Presse in an interview on Monday. “Obviously, with such serious allegations against a staff member, we are calling for him to have a fair hearing.”
But Israeli prosecutors say that it is normal for trials involving sensitive information to take place behind closed doors, and say that this practice won’t undermine the fairness of El-Halabi’s hearing.
Some Israeli researchers say that a closed trial may prove essential – to save Palestinian lives. “At the forthcoming World Vision trial, Palestinian witnesses will be called to testify about the transfer of humanitarian supplies to Hamas military and they will be risking their lives when they testify,” said David Bedein in an interview with The AJN.
Bedein, director of the Jerusalem-based Centre for Near East Policy Research and a longstanding critic of World Vision’s conduct in Gaza, said: “If Palestinian witnesses are forced to testify in the open, the possibility exists that they will be summarily executed by the powers that be.”
Headquartered in Monrovia, California, World Vision describes itself as “a global Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.”
The charity’s mission statement defines it as “an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.”
It operates in around 100 countries.
Sources: NBC and The Australian Jewish News.
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