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Israel has deployed a new strategy to hamper aid works in Gaza. It has been levelling myriad accusations against international NGOs and aid workers to make Gazans’ life more miserable. Israel accused that one of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) staff helped Hamas fighters in Gaza. Israel 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.
He is also alleged to have persuaded UNDP managers to focus home rebuilding efforts in areas where Hamas members lived, after pressure from the group. The UN body has promised thorough internal review of the processes and circumstances surrounding the allegation.
Israel has long alleged that aid has been diverted to Hamas, claims rejected by NGOs and the United Nations.
Materials and goods taken into Gaza are subject to some of the strictest monitoring in the world. More than 11,000 homes were completely destroyed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas and other factions in the summer of 2014. Despite the claims, United Nations remains confident that it has robust measures in place to prevent aid diversion.
In another case, Israel indicts Gaza head of major charity World Vision Mohammed Al-Halabi over the allegations that tens of millions of dollars in aid were funnelled off to Hamas. World Vision’s cumulative operating budget in Gaza for the past 10 years was approximately $22.5 million, which makes the alleged amount of up to $50 million being diverted hard to reconcile.
Moreover, Halabi became the NGO’s Gaza head in 2014 and would have only had the personal authority to sign off a budget up to $15,000.
Such allegations and arrests of aid workers are giving Israel a ploy to squeeze the Gazans further and deter international community from donations to such NGOs. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Watch—an Israeli group critical of aid in the Palestinian territories—calls these arrests and evidence charities need to share more security information with Israel’s security services.
Aid organisations see any such push as an attack on the principles of objectivity and neutrality between warring parties.
Such baseless allegations may affect the willingness of banks to work with aid organisations across the Middle East.
Anti-terrorism legislation in the United States and elsewhere has made banks increasingly wary of dealing with NGOs working in high-risk environments like Gaza.
This would further worsen the already dire situation for civilians.
More than two thirds of the populations of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has blockaded for a decade, are reliant on some form of aid.
The NGO says it has seen no evidence presented by Israel. But aid workers fear the arrests will lead to tighter Israeli restrictions.
Israel uses concerns around Hamas as an excuse to restrict import of basic goods into the enclave. Aid organisations say they are part of a wider Israeli effort to tighten the siege of the Gaza Strip by prosecuting international relief organisations. It is imperative that international community must understand the Israeli gimmick. They must not give in to Israeli design to keep aid organisations from their work.