World Vision aid worker says Hamas believed ‘lie’, documents are fake

Mohammed al-Halabi said he believed the “lie” that even Hamas was siphoning millions in aid money, insisting that the Palestinian militant group launched its own investigations into the terror case because it believed he had stolen funds he never received.

World Vision’s former Gaza director, who was jailed in 2022 for deliberately diverting large amounts of material to help Hamas dig tunnels, has dismissed as “complete fabrication” newly released documents showing the banned terrorist group spied on and interrogated aid agency staff to prevent their prosecution in Israel.

Halabi, who maintains his innocence, was detained for more than eight years before being released in a hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas last year. His lengthy trial drew condemnation from human rights groups around the world for its secrecy.

“All the investigations carried out by Hamas were initiated because they believed the lie that I received $50 million of World Vision’s money, that I stole this money and did not transfer anything to them, because of course they did not receive a single penny,” Halabi said in a statement.

When Halabi was arrested in 2016, World Vision was one of the Australian government’s largest aid partners in the Palestinian territories.

Multiple reports by the Hamas Ministry of Internal Affairs and National Security alleged that Halabi used his senior role within the international aid agency while secretly working for Hamas, and that the terrorist group considered his exposure a major internal security failure.

The declassified material published by this imprint last week was seized by the Israel Defense Forces over the past two years and reviewed by NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research center. The document detailed Hamas’s monitoring of Israeli court hearings that have been closed for several years, its efforts to identify leakers of suspicious information, and its efforts to prevent potential witnesses from reaching Israel.

Halabi, who said he currently lives in a tent in northern Gaza, completely rejected this description.

“There can be no doubt that the documents presented to you are completely fake and pure fabrication,” he said.

He dismissed allegations that a Hamas human source attended closed hearings in Israel as “too absurd to comment.”

“Closed sessions are called closed sessions because they are closed to the public. Only me, my lawyer, prosecutors and judges attended these sessions. Is it the claim that Israeli judges are the human resources of Hamas, or the claim that prosecutors should be the human resources?”

World Vision accountant Mohammed Mehdi, who was among those interrogated by Hamas, allegedly acted as a whistleblower who alerted authorities that Halabi had diverted World Vision funds to Hamas over several years, according to the disputed documents.

Much of the evidence used to incriminate Halabi remains secret, as does the 254-page decision of the Beersheba District Court. The summary version released to the press upon his conviction in 2022 relied heavily on Halabi’s confessions to Shin Bet security agents. Halabi said he never confessed and even rejected the plea deal.

According to the court ruling, Halabi was recruited by Hamas in 2004 and initially worked as a soldier for the terrorist organization, then joined World Vision in 2005.

The earlier publication of documents allegedly belonging to Hamas, not Halabi, became controversial after the IDF investigation revealed that some files leaked to foreign media were fake in order to shape public opinion about Israel.

This investigation raised concerns that classified materials seized in Gaza (or simply documents allegedly obtained from Hamas) were being manipulated and presented to international media in an attempt to influence debates. Provoking anger in Israeli security services.

With this imprint, the IDF confirmed the legitimacy of the Halabi documents, which were later translated by NGO Monitor and independently checked by this imprint. Various attempts have been made to verify these through Hamas’ legal representation in Australia and Europe.

NGO MonitorThe privately funded organization has faced criticism from international aid groups for many years for insulting charities Claiming to be influenced or controlled by Hamas or another armed group.

Allegations were also made in his research regarding aid efforts in Gaza. targeting only human rights groups critical of the Israeli occupation.

Halabi also said allegations that World Vision staff did not want to testify were “a blatant lie refuted by the facts.”

“All World Vision employees wanted to attend the hearings and testify in court. Even after the prosecutor told them that the World Vision witness would be imprisoned if he came to testify in court, he continued to express his desire to come. Israeli authorities prevented their testimony,” he said.

World Vision Australia said it had “seen nothing” following the 2022 conviction that would make it question the conclusion that Halabi was innocent. He argued that Gaza programs were subject to regular audits and internal controls and that he had seen no credible evidence of aid diversion.

When asked about the documents, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that in August 2016, World Vision suspended funding for its activities in the Palestinian Territories. The review found “nothing to suggest that government funds had been diverted”, but it only covered information he held about the management of Australian finances.

Halabi said in his statement that Israeli authorities could not reveal anything that would link him to the group.

In one of the documents dated March 11, 2020, “the above-mentioned [Halabi] “He was in contact with very few brother groups,” he said, explaining how the authorities discovered his connection with the terrorist organization.

“The fact that the above fabricated lies are ‘the best evidence they have’ despite all efforts proves that I am an innocent victim of a malicious campaign to smear INGOs. I have paid the price for this campaign.”

Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said aid agencies and the governments that fund many of them had failed to provide even minimal oversight or transparency.

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