As a result, worldwide aid officials and Israeli analysts predict that Israel and global donors will increase pressure on aid groups to improve those checks – which will cost money and manpower, and could strain the organizations’ ability to operate.
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It comes days after the Gaza head of US-based NGO World Vision was charged with passing millions of dollars of global aid money to Hamas.
A lawyer for Mr. Borsh couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is greatly concerned by the allegation from the Israeli authorities”, it said, promising “a thorough internal review of the processes and circumstances surrounding the allegation”.
Last Thursday Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, indicted the director of World Vision in the Gaza strip for siphoning off millions in charity money and funneling it to Hamas.
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. “This raises questions as to whether the group would prevent components of its aid from being misappropriated by terrorist organizations, if it felt that taking a stand would jeopardize the organization’s ability to continue its operations in a given area”.
The organization said that “based on the information available to us at this time, we have no reason to believe that the allegations are true”.
The UNDP, an agency of the UN, is one of the world’s largest multilateral development agencies. It has played a significant role in reconstructing the Palestinian enclave after three wars in eight years between Israel and Hamas.
Burash had worked as a UNDP engineer since 2003. Halabi also admitted that he was utilizing his position to take away the humanitarian organization’s money and resources from the needy “to benefit of Hamas’s terrorist and military activities”. It said he was arrested in July and confessed to using his position to help Hamas.
Halabi regularly transferred equipment to Hamas that he had ordered for World Vision, under the pretense that it was for agricultural aid, the Shin Bet said, some of which was used to help construct tunnels that could be used to attack Israel.
A member of Hamas from a young age, in 2005 Halabi was “handpicked to infiltrate” World Vision with the aim of diverting funds to the terror group. He did not provide proof of his claim, but said el-Halabi’s legal team will have access to the evidence.
“World Vision’s cumulative operating budget in Gaza for the past ten years was approximately $22.5 million, which makes the alleged amount of up to $50 million being diverted hard to reconcile”, charity president Kevin Jenkins said in a statement.
According to the charge sheet, Halabi recruited a Palestinian aid worker from Save the Children to join Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in 2014.
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It comes days after the Gaza head of US -based NGO World Vision was charged with passing millions of dollars of global aid money to Hamas.
