A Palestinian employee of the UN Development Programme in Gaza Strip was on Tuesday charged in an Israeli court of using his position to assist Hamas’s military wing.
Advertisement
Israeli officials said that the country’s foreign ministry informed the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the UNDP after the latest arrest in July and that Israel had demanded an inquiry.
Israel has long alleged that aid has been diverted to Hamas, claims rejected by NGOs and the United Nations.
A lawyer for Mr. Borsh couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“We do take any allegations of this nature very seriously and are making inquiries into this matter”, Save the Children said in a statement, adding that it had “not been notified or contacted by the (Israeli) authorities on the details of the allegations”.
That suspect, Mohammed El Halabi, denied the charges, as did Hamas, while World Vision said it had yet to see evidence to back up Israel’s allegations.
Hamas has denied the allegations surrounding its connection with both Borsh and Halabi. “Hamas does not want to be in a position where we feel we need to keep defending ourselves”.
The UNDP, an agency of the UN, is one of the world’s largest multilateral development agencies.
Since 2008, Israel has fought three wars in Gaza with Hamas, which is branded a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Mr. Borsh had worked for the agency in Gaza since 2003 and his areas of responsibility included demolishing houses damaged during armed conflicts and clearing the rubbish from sites after demolition, the Shin Bet said.
Israel on Tuesday charged engineer Waheed Borsh with diverting aid to Hamas, particularly by using rubble from UNDP projects to build a jetty used by Hamas for its naval force.
Israel’s Shin Bet (the internal security service ) said that Bursh also gave them information about other Hamas operatives who are embedded in other aid organizations in Gaza. The group’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zurhi called the accusations “false and baseless”, and said they were aimed at helping Israel strengthen its “siege” of Gaza.
Borsh confessed that he carried out various tasks for Hamas, the Shin Bet said.
The UNDP is the “latest victim of Hamas”, he said. He also ordered thousands of tons of steel and building materials for “humanitarian” purposes, providing them to Hamas for terror activities.
World Vision Germany spokeswoman Silvia Holten told The Associated Press that the organization’s budget in Gaza over the last decade was $22.5 million which amounts to an annual average of $2.25 million.
The formal charge sheet was not publicly available.
Advertisement
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon countered World Vision’s latest response by speculating that the organization’s budget does not include in-kind donations like food.
