The statement said Halabi became the NGO’s Gaza head in 2014 and would have only had the personal authority to sign off a budget up to US$15,000.
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Abu Zuhri called on the worldwide community to bear its responsibility over such “practices which could have risky consequences”.
According to the Shin Bet security service, Wahid Abd Allah Borsh, 38, an engineer in the UN’s Development Program, both funneled resources to the terrorist group and kept Hamas out of trouble with the worldwide organization.
Shin Bet also claims that in 2015, he persuaded UNDP managers to prioritise housing rehabilitation in areas populated by Hamas members in response to a request from the group.
The charges were far less severe than those leveled Thursday against Mohammed el-Halabi, the manager of operations for the Christian charity World Vision in Gaza.
World Vision said in a statement that its budgets are audited by professional and global auditors.
Last week, the charity said it was committed to “regular internal and independent audits, independent evaluations and a broad range of internal controls aimed at ensuring assets reach their intended beneficiaries”.
It alleged he had confessed to a number of charges, including helping to build a jetty in the northern Gaza Strip, with UNDP funding, which was later used by Hamas naval forces.
In a statement it said they were part of a wider Israeli effort “to tighten the siege of the Gaza Strip by prosecuting global relief organizations”.
The online clip entitled “Thank you, Hamas” makes no mention of closed borders and other fallout from conflicts with Gaza’s neighbors since Hamas seized the strip in 2007.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon circulated a cartoon showing a child and an elderly panhandler in Gaza.
The office of World Vision in East Jerusalem.
Shin Bet said that the charges demonstrate “how Hamas exploits the resources of global aid organisations at the expense of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip”. Palestinians who benefitted from World Vision aid in the Strip gathered outside the World Vision headquarters in Gaza City, demanding that Halabi, whom they dubbed “humanity’s savior”, be released from Israeli custody immediately.
Israel and Hamas has fought three wars over the past decade. If confirmed, Hamas’s embezzlement of aid funds would be “reprehensible”, according to the statement.
The president and CEO of World Vision Keith Jenkins says the group is investigating but, on their face, the numbers don’t support the scope of the alleged theft.
As The Two-Way reported last night, World Vision has cast doubt on Israel’s accusations, saying they seemed implausible.
Hamas called the claims “baseless”.
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Hamas is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, EU, and United Kingdom among other countries.
