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Israel Indicts UN Engineer for Aiding Hamas

Waheed Borsh, a 38-year-old engineer from the city of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, was arrested on July 16.

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According to the Shin Bet, Burash was instructed by a senior Hamas official in 2014 to use his position in order to help the organization.

Shin Bet also claims Borsh persuaded his managers to prioritise areas where Hamas members lived when rebuilding houses damaged in conflicts with Israel.

It said Mohammed Halabi, World Vision’s Gaza project manager, channelled millions of dollars of charity money to military uses.

The UNDP did not have an immediate response to the allegations, but said it planned to release a statement “within the hour”.

Save the Children said in its statement it had “not been notified or contacted by the (Israeli) authorities on the details of the allegations”.

The statement said the charges demonstrate “how Hamas exploits the resources of worldwide aid organisations at the expense of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip”.

The US State Department said the United States contributed more than $1.4 billion to the West Bank and Gaza since 2012, and that it thoroughly vets its staff and coordinates with the Israeli government to prevent its funding from being used to support terrorism.

Israel has long alleged that aid has been diverted to Hamas, claims rejected by NGOs and the United Nations.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist group in Israel and many Western countries.

In addition to directing material support to Hamas, Borsh allegedly helped the group keep its weapons and materiel after they were found in United Nations locations. He also admitted to to notifying Hamas when UNDP would discover hidden weapons caches or terror tunnel openings in buildings they were rehabilitating, in violation of UNDP procedures.

The UNDP, an agency of the UN, is one of the world’s largest multilateral development agencies. Halabi’s father also denied that he is a member of Hamas.

According to the ISA, the case exemplifies “how Hamas exploits the resources of global aid organisations at the expense of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip”.

Part of it was allegedly used to build attack tunnels from blockaded Gaza into Israel.

Last week, Israeli authorities accused el-Halabi of diverting $7 million a year from World Vision projects in the Gaza Strip to Hamas operations, including those run by its military wing.

Israel’s foreign ministry said Hamas was trying to make the lives of civilians in Gaza more hard in order to strengthen its rule.

Israeli authorities allege Borsh diverted 300 tons of rubble, or more than seven truckloads out of a total of almost 26, to a Hamas-operated port in Northern Gaza to construct the jetty.

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Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor, a pro-Israel group that watches assistance to the Palestinians, called on aid groups to use surveillance and intelligence technologies to track their workers.

Palestinian staff of the United Nations Development Programme drive an official car in front of its headquarters in Gaza City on Tuesday