“Helen Clark must take responsibility”.
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Hamas spokesman Salah Bardaweel said Tuesday the group “is not telling people that we live in paradise”, but argues that it has governed well under tough circumstances.
“Sadly, UNDP has a history of pandering to the Hamas regime in Gaza, including in numerous public statements which have whitewashed Hamas’ weaponization of homes, schools, and hospitals”.
UNDP said that it would respond to the allegations soon.
Israel has long warned that well-intentioned Western aid to Gaza was ending up in the hands of terrorists and the government has held up both arrests as proof of “how Hamas exploits the resources of global aid organisations at the expense of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip”.
Reacting on Twitter, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon described UNDP as the “latest victim of Hamas”, adding that worldwide aid money, “sorely needed by the Gaza population”, had been “stolen for terror purposes”.
Waheed Abdallah Borsh, a Gazan Palestinian working for UNDP, was arrested in July by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and indicted on Tuesday, when the investigation was cleared for publication. He was charged with assisting Hamas, an internationally-recognized Islamist terrorist organization.
Palestinian staff of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) drive an official auto in front of its headquarters in Gaza City on August 9, 2016.
Borsh, who was responsible for overseeing the demolition and clearing of rubble of houses damaged during conflicts, confessed to disclosing to Hamas information that allowed them to exploit the organization’s activities to their own benefit.
A UNDP spokesman said the United Nations agency “has zero tolerance for wrongdoing” in all of its programs.
According to the Shin Bet, during the investigation, “it was discovered that he had been instructed by a senior member of Hamas to redirect his work for UNDP to serve Hamas’ military interests”.
Israeli officials contacted the office of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about Mr. Borsh’s arrest, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry said Tuesday. Borsh was acting in response to a request by Hamas. He also ordered thousands of tons of steel and building materials for “humanitarian” purposes, providing them to Hamas for terror activities. For example, he allegedly informed Hamas that armaments or tunnel entrances were found in homes under the UNDP’s authority so that the group could commandeer the site, in clear contradiction of the United Nations organization’s mandate.
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The claim is part of a Shin Bet indictment of Mohammad El-Halabi, the World Vision director in Gaza who last week was charged with funnelling tens of millions of dollars of aid money to Hamas’ armed wing.
