Tag Archives: Hamas

World Vision lays off contractors in Gaza after Israel allegations

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Christian aid group World Vision has laid off about 120 contractors in the Gaza Strip following allegations by Israel that the agency’s operations manager in the territory had diverted funds to the Islamist group Hamas.

In an Aug. 29 letter handed to contractors at a meeting in Gaza, the NGO said its bank accounts in Jerusalem had been frozen by Israeli authorities and it was no longer able to transfer money to Gaza, making it impossible to pay them.

The letter said World Vision was living through a big crisis and its sources of funding had been affected. It was written in Arabic and a copy was sent to Reuters.

“Because of the crisis, we have frozen all our activities in Gaza. Our bank accounts in Jerusalem were frozen by the (Israeli) authorities, which also prevented us from making any transfers to Gaza.

“Because of these conditions that are beyond the control of World Vision, we will not be able to keep your job at the present stage because we will not be able to transfer any salaries or any other payments.”

A spokesman for World Vision spokesman would not confirm that the contractors had been laid off, saying only that the agency’s operations in Gaza had been suspended following the accusations against the operations manager, Mohammad El Halabi.

“Due to the seriousness of the allegations laid against Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision has suspended operations in Gaza,” the organization said. “We are conducting a full review, including an externally conducted forensic audit.”

Israel arrested El Halabi in June and last month accused him of funneling tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, the Islamist militant group that has controlled the territory since 2007.

Halabi has denied any wrongdoing via his lawyer. He has been charged and has appeared at a pre-trial hearing held in secret. World Vision and Amnesty International have called on Israel to ensure he receives a fair and transparent trial.

Israeli officials accuse Halabi of siphoning off more than $7 million a year since 2010 to pay Hamas fighters, buy arms, pay for the group’s activities and build fortifications.

World Vision has disputed the allegations, saying in a statement on Aug. 8 that its total operating budget in Gaza over the past 10 years was around $22.5 million, making the alleged diversion of nearly $50 million “hard to reconcile”.

Some foreign diplomats have expressed concern at Israel’s presentation of the case and sought clearer evidence for the numbers. Since the allegations emerged, however, Australia has suspended funding to the aid group.

One of the contractors laid off told Reuters World Vision had emphasized the situation was out of its control.

“They said it was about the freezing of transfers and nothing else, when we asked them if that had to do with Halabi’s case,” he said, asking not to be named because he did not want to jeopardize the payment of funds he is still awaiting.

The termination letter informed contractors World Vision was looking at ways to pay all amounts owed to them through legal channels and “we hope this happens in the near future”.

The statement asked signatories to hand over belongings that they had received from the aid group including mobile phones, work identity cards and computers.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker; editing by Angus MacSwan)

Australia suspends World Vision aid over Hamas funding accusations

The logo of U.S.-based Christian charity World Vision is seen on a car parked outside their offices in Jerusalem

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.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it “calls on the organization and others dealing in aid to the Gaza Strip to examine themselves and their local partners.”

Australia has paid World Vision approximately $4.35 million over the past three financial years for the provision of aid in the Palestinian Territories, a DFAT spokesman said.

(Editing by Michael Perry)

Israel accuses World Vision’s Gaza rep of funding Hamas

The logo of U.S.-based Christian charity World Vision is seen on a car parked outside their offices in Jerusalem

By Ori Lewis

ASHKELON, Israel (Reuters) – Israel accused U.S.-based Christian relief group World Vision’s Gaza representative on Thursday of funneling millions of dollars in aid money to Hamas, charges that the Islamist militant group denied and the charity voiced skepticism over.

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 the Israeli and U.S. terrorism blacklists.

World Vision said it was “shocked” by Israel’s allegations and said in a statement that it had regular internal and independent audits and evaluations as well as a broad range of internal controls to ensure aid reached intended beneficiaries.

“Based on the information available to us at this time, we have no reason to believe that the allegations are true. We will carefully review any evidence presented to us and will take appropriate actions based on that evidence,” the statement said.

It was not immediately clear if Halabi had been assigned a lawyer or how he might plead in court once formally charged. Israel had previously maintained a gag order on the case.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, a senior Israeli security official said Halabi, who has run the group’s Gaza operations since 2010, had been under extended surveillance.

The official said Halabi, a Palestinian, had confessed to siphoning off some $7.2 million a year, about 60 percent of the World Vision’s Gaza funding, to pay Hamas fighters, buy arms, pay for its activities and build fortifications.

“Money was used to fund Hamas and pay armed wing fighters, and food and health packs intended for Gaza residents were also given to Hamas operatives, rather than to their intended recipients, the poor and meek of Gaza,” the official said.

The Israeli security official said some of the money Halabi was accused of taking had been used to buy arms for insurgents in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, that also borders Israel, and that a Hamas military base was built with $80,000 of the funds.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, speaking in Gaza, said the group had “no connection to (Halabi) and therefore, all Israeli accusations are void and aim to suppress our people”. Hamas also denies any links to Sinai insurgents.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Dan Williams and Ori Lewis; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Israel discovers 2nd cross border tunnel built by Hamas

An entrance to a tunnel which Israel's military said it had discovered is seen just outside the southern Gaza Strip

By Eli Berlzon

SUFA, Israel (Reuters) – Israel’s military said it had discovered a cross-border tunnel on Thursday built by the Islamist group Hamas from the Gaza Strip during a rare flare-up of violence along a border that has been largely quiet since a 2014 war.

Gaza hospital officials said a 54-year-old woman had been killed and a man wounded by fragments of an Israeli tank shell fired near Rafah during the violence, which erupted on Wednesday.

Israel’s Shin Bet undercover intelligence agency said a Hamas operative arrested last month had provided useful information about the tunnel networks in the area, though it did not explicitly attribute Thursday’s discovery to his data.

Gaza analysts said the flare-up of violence, the most intense since the 2014 war, threatened the truce that has largely held in the area for nearly two years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to convene senior ministers on Friday to discuss the situation. Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said after touring the area that Israel would not be deterred by Hamas’s threats and would continue to search “until all the tunnels are found.”

A senior Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, said efforts by Qatar and Egypt were ongoing to try to restore calm, but he warned that “Israeli incursions into Gaza would not be tolerated.”

Militants fired mortar shells at Israeli forces working to unearth the tunnel and Israel responded with tank fire and air strikes, an army spokeswoman said. The violence had subsided by late Thursday night and there was a period of calm toward midnight.

Israeli aircraft earlier targeted four Hamas positions in the vicinity of the tunnel, the military said. During Wednesday and Thursday, there were 10 instances of Hamas fire against Israeli forces operating in the area, it added.

Hamas, Gaza’s de facto ruler, has not confirmed responsibility for the shelling and did not comment on the announcement of the tunnel’s discovery.

TUNNEL SEARCH

Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the tunnel unearthed on Thursday was situated 28 meters (31 yards) below the surface and that an investigation was under way to determine whether it was dug before or after the war.

Lerner said the militants may have started firing mortars at the Israeli forces to prevent them discovering the tunnel. Last month a first tunnel was unearthed without incident.

But the armed wing of Hamas said the tunnel was not new and had been in use in the early part of the war in 2014.

Israel has been wary about discussing what means it has employed to uncover the tunnels but the arrest of Mahmoud Atouna, 29, from Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip early last month may have helped.

“Atouna provided his interrogators much information about the tunnel routes in the northern Gaza Strip, its tunnel-digging methods, the use of private homes and public buildings to bore tunnels and materials used,” Shin Bet said in a statement on Thursday.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed by rockets and attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Writing by Dan Williams and Ori Lewis; editing by Gareth Jones, G Crosse)

Israeli, Palestinian violence flares along Gaza border

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly government cabinet meeting in Jerusalem

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Violence erupted along the Israel-Gaza border on Wednesday as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants exchanged fire and Israeli war jets bombed targets in the enclave, ruled by the Islamist Hamas group.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the rare flare-up along the frontier, which has been largely quiet since a 2014 war.

The outbreak of violence coincided with work by the Israeli military to uncover tunnels being built by Gaza militants that Israel fears could be used to infiltrate its territory. The Palestinians fired mortar bombs at Israeli forces operating near the border fence, prompting fire from Israeli tanks and warplanes that bombed open areas in the northern and southern sectors of the Gaza Strip. “Our efforts to destroy the Hamas terror tunnel network, a grave violation of Israel’s sovereignty, will not cease or be deterred,” military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said.The Hamas armed wing, Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said the raid was a violation of the 2014 ceasefire and demanded that Israel pull out its forces “immediately”.”The enemy must not make pretexts and must leave Gaza immediately, they should deal with their fears and concerns outside the separation line,” the group said in a statement.

A senior Hamas official in exile, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said calm along the Gaza-Israel border was being restored following intervention with the two sides on the part of Egypt, which brokered the truce that stopped the 2014 war.

“Contacts were made with Egyptian brothers, who sponsored the last ceasefire agreement. Their response was quick, serious, which helped restore things to where they were before,” Abu Marzouk in a post on his official Facebook page.

On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspected a large tunnel discovered in April on the Israeli side of the border. Israel said it had been dug by Hamas.

Israeli security sources say half a dozen classified anti-tunnel technologies have long been under development, though held up by funding problems that were partly alleviated by a U.S. research grant of $40 million this year.

Hamas leaders, while stressing they do not seek an imminent war, see tunnels as a strategic weapon in any armed confrontation with Israel and have vowed not to stop building them.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed by rockets and attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Hamas not seeking a war with Israel, says top official

GAZA (Reuters) – A senior leader of the Islamist group Hamas said the Palestinian movement was not seeking a new war with Israel and insisted a network of tunnels it is digging, some of which have reached into Israel in the past, was “defensive”.

Speaking to members of the Foreign Press Association in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a medical doctor seen by many as a hardliner, suggested the prospects of reconciliation with the rival Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas were slim, despite years of international efforts to forge unity.

“I think nobody here in the region is looking for a war,” said Zahar, 71, who has survived two Israeli assassination attempts, one of which, in 2003, killed his son.

“We are not looking for any confrontation with Israel, but if they are going to launch an aggression we have to defend ourselves,” he told reporters late on Wednesday.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 after a brief civil war with Abbas’s forces. It maintains strict security over the coastal territory, where more than 1.9 million people live. Zahar is one of Hamas’s founders and one of its most senior figures in Gaza, regarded as close to the military wing.

The movement has, since its founding in 1987, advocated the destruction of Israel, seeing all of historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, as its land.

However, some of its leaders have indicated in recent years that they would accept a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, in return for a long-term truce with their neighbor.

Israel regards the truce idea as a ploy and will not negotiate with Hamas, which the EU and United States list as a terrorist group.

Asked why Hamas was building tunnels, Zahar said they were defensive and suggested they were nothing against the might of the U.S.-supplied Israeli military.

“You are speaking about tunnels? You are not speaking about F-35 (fighter planes)? You are not speaking about the nuclear bomb in Israel… The tunnels are a matter of self-defense,” he said.

Hamas’s armed wing has lost 10 fighters this year in tunnel collapses. In strongly worded speeches, the group’s leaders have pledged to pursue the tunnel building, prompting alarm in Israel, which has stepped up efforts to find the tunnels and stop them reaching its territory.

The heightened tension on both sides has fueled fears of another war, which would be the fifth since Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006. The last war, in July-August 2014, left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians, while 73 Israelis, nearly all soldiers, were killed.

INTERNAL SPLIT

With an Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza making it difficult for goods and people to move in and out of the territory, Hamas and Fatah have made efforts to reconcile their differences and form a functioning unity government.

Yet the latest round of discussions in the Qatar capital Doha has become bogged down, despite early signs of progress, and Zahar gave the impression that a deal was some way off.

He said Abbas and Fatah were not sincere about achieving reconciliation, a charge Fatah threw back. He also vowed that his group would never recognize the state of Israel, which Abbas and Fatah have done and want Hamas to do.

“They (Fatah) have no will to achieve an agreement. There is no intention,” he said.

The blockade on Gaza and the breakdown of relations with Fatah have created huge strains on the economy in Gaza. Since Fatah controls the budget from the West Bank, it has so far resisted making payments to security forces and other state employees in Gaza who were hired by Hamas since 2007.

As a result, Hamas is heavily dependent on support from abroad, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran. While Saudi and Iran are at odds, Zahar said Hamas was not taking sides.

“We are looking to have good relations with everybody,” he said. “We will not play any factor or element in the internal or external confrontation between these countries.”

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Israelis near Gaza fear Hamas is tunneling beneath them

PRI GAN, Israel/GAZA (Reuters) – Nissim Hakmon and his neighbors say they hear banging and clattering at night. They are convinced it can only mean one thing: Hamas is tunneling under their homes from Gaza and will one day emerge, guns blazing, to attack or kidnap them.

The Israeli government says its investigations have not come up with any evidence the night-time noises reported by villagers living near Gaza emanate from tunnels, but assertions by Hamas of extensive cross-border digging has only fueled concern.

“The fear among everyone here is constant,” Hakmon told Reuters in his village of Pri Gan, near the Gaza Strip. “I’ve heard the sound of a hammer and chisel and my neighbor says she can hear them digging under the cement. We’re stressed out.”

The Palestinian Islamist group which runs Gaza used tunnels running out of the strip to give its heavily outgunned fighters the advantage of surprise during its 2014 war with Israel.

Twelve soldiers were killed by Hamas tunnel raiders and one was kidnapped. No civilians have been targeted by the fighters, who describe the tunnels as a defensive tool in case of future conflict. But that is little reassurance to the villagers.

Underground infiltration by gunmen from Gaza “is something we know deep inside is just a matter of time, even though we tell the kids everything is okay,” Hakmon said.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

Hakmon’s worry is being echoed by some others who live on the Gaza periphery, putting extra political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the standoff with the Palestinian territory since the war in 2014.

Beset by a months-long surge of street attacks by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel has little desire to see a fresh flare-up in Gaza, where Hamas has mostly held its fire in the past 18 months.

The movement announced last week it had rehabilitated cross-border tunnels destroyed during the war – a muscle-flexing message to Israel, its security partner Egypt and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamists’ U.S.-backed rival.

“The resistance factions are in a state of ongoing preparation underground, above ground, on land and sea,” Hamas deputy leader Ismail Haniyeh said at a rally called to honor seven tunnelers who were killed in a cave-in on Tuesday.

Hamas has twice the number of tunnels as those used in the Vietnam war against U.S. forces, Haniyeh said – a tall order, but bold enough a claim to shore up the worries voiced in Pri Gan, 4 km (2 miles) away from the Gaza border, and elsewhere.

The residents’ alarm, amplified by local media, and calls for preemptive military action by opposition politicians, roused Netanyahu to warn Hamas on Sunday.

“Should we be attacked through Gaza Strip tunnels, we will take forceful action against Hamas, with far greater force than was used in Protective Edge,” he said, referring to the 2014 war, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians.

“We are working systematically and level-headedly against all threats, including the Hamas threat, through both defensive and offensive measures.”

Israel lost six civilians in the war as well as 67 soldiers.

Military engineers unearthed and destroyed 32 tunnels, Israeli officials say, and have since, with U.S. help, been developing a half-dozen technologies for detecting digs along the sandy, 65-km (40 mile) frontier with Gaza.

When those counter-measures might be ready is a closely guarded secret. Hamas, for its part, may be hoping to lay down as many new tunnels as possible before the system is in place.

“We are not asking for war, but getting ready for one should Israel launch it,” Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida said.

“GUNS DRAWN”

Israel’s refusal to elaborate on its anti-tunnel efforts has fanned fears in the 30-odd villages near the Gaza frontier.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israel Radio on Monday that military experts “rush anywhere that someone claims to hear noises (but) those tests have not shown that the noise is from the digging of tunnels”.

The conservative government has found itself in the unfamiliar situation of preaching restraint after center-left opposition leader Isaac Herzog demanded any tunnels be bombed.

“What are the prime minister and defense minister waiting for? For terrorists to surface with guns drawn?” Herzog said.

Yaalon shot back that such discussions should be held behind closed doors, and argued that the passive build-up of an enemy’s capabilities did not necessarily warrant initiating hostilities.

“It might also be proposed that we go and attack (Lebanese guerrilla group) Hezbollah’s 100,000 rockets in the north or the hundreds of missiles that Iran has aimed at us,” Yaalon said.

Hakmon does not share the government’s equanimity, and says he and other Pri Gan residents are going around armed, locking their doors and shuttering their windows as a precaution.

“We are waiting for the army, or, God forbid, for the worst to happen,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Palestinian President Says His People No Longer Bound By Peacekeeping Oslo Accord

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced at the United Nations General Assembly that Palestinians are no longer bound by the 1995 Oslo accord that established the foundation for a two-state solution because Israel did not implement it. This announcement has risen even more between Palestine and Israel and has sent Middle Eastern negotiations into uncharted territory.

The Oslo Accord was a peacekeeping agreement between Israel and Palestine that stated Palestine would be independent and free of Israeli occupation by 1999. Since then, Israel set up three areas in the West Bank for transitional governance.

“As long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, which render us an authority without real powers, and as long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said.

Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, says one of the implications could be for countries to implement legally bound sanctions against Israel for not meeting its commitments.

“The EU would have to take a much further stand in labeling products that emerge from settlements. They could have to ban settlement products altogether and be even legally inclined to sanction Israel,” she said.

Other analysts believe that Abbas’ announcement would not change anything. Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert and scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, stated that the announcement was “an expression of frustration and an effort to create a new point of political departure for his international drive for recognition.”

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stated that Abbas’ declaration was “deceitful.” The director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, stated in an interview with the New York Times that “Israel does uphold its agreements.”

Palestinians Attack Israelis on “Day of Rage”

Palestinians attacked Israelis with Molotov cocktails, rocks and other projectiles after Islamic terrorist group Hamas called for a “day of rage.”

The terrorist group was capitalizing on days of tension around the Al-Aqsa mosque during the Jewish new year.

Israeli officials had prepared in advance for the terrorist-initiated violence by adding 800 extra police to patrols in the middle of Jerusalem and surrounding Arab areas.

“The Israeli police have heightened security in and around Jerusalem and the Old City in order to prevent and respond to any incidents that could take place,” said spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, adding that undercover units had been deployed.

Three people were wounded by a firebomb according to police officials.  Five Palestinians have been arrested for the attack.

Palestinian leaders had been claiming that Israel was attemping to change the status quo at the site, where Jews can visit under police guard but are not allowed to stop and pray.

Captured Hamas Terrorist Gives Up Tunnel Locations

Israel’s Shin Bet General Security Service announced Tuesday they had captured a Hamas terrorist who has given up a trove of information on the terrorist group’s tunnel system into Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed much of the terrorist’s information including a tunnel in the area of the Kerem Shalom border crossing.  The IDF says they are working “around the clock” to take care of the threat from the newly discovered tunnels.

The terrorist, Ibraheem Adel Shehadeh Shaer, was a tunnel digger for the terror group.  In addition to the locations of new parts to the Hamas tunnel system, Shaer provided information emergency procedures and how they plan to use the tunnels to attack Israel.

Shaer told Shin Bet that Iran provided cash to Hamas along with advanced weapons and electronic equipment.  Some of the advanced equipment is designed to interfere with the control signals for Israeli drone aircraft.

The fighter detailed the advanced units of Hamas along with the group’s anti-tank and anti-aircraft capabilities.  He also gave up the location of observation posts and photographic capabilities into Israel.

Shaer also confirmed that Hamas commanders keep weapons and explosives in their homes around their families because of fear of Israeli airstrikes.