Hamas spied on and interrogated staff from the NGO World Vision, disrupting attempts by whistleblowers to obstruct a trial against the charity’s former Gaza director, Hamas internal documents captured by the IDF during the war revealed.
World Vision’s former Gaza director, Mohammed al-Halabi, who was convicted in Israel in 2022 six years after he was arrested for diverting aid to Hamas, worked for Hamas while holding a senior position in the NGO, according to the Hamas documents reviewed by The Jerusalem Post.
Concealing Halabi’s involvement
In an effort to conceal Halabi’s involvement, as shown in a document dated March 3, 2020, Hamas attempted to identify witnesses against him from within the NGO, putting staff under surveillance and attempting to stop one witness from reaching Israel to give testimony by preventing his access through the Beit Hanoun Crossing.
World Vision accountant Mohammed Mehdi, who was among those interrogated by Hamas, allegedly acted as a whistleblower, alerting authorities that Halabi had diverted World Vision funds to Hamas over the course of several years.
Hamas also had a source within Israel closely monitoring the closed-door legal proceedings, the Hamas documents revealed.
One of the documents from March 11, 2020, noted that “the aforementioned [Halabi] was in contact with very few parties of brothers” and described how authorities uncovered his involvement in the terror group.
The terror group’s monitoring of staff also allegedly found that the organization employed a member of the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence unit and was receiving small packages in addition to a $900 Hawala payment, according to a document dated March 11, 2020. This information cannot be confirmed by The Post.
'Halabi had no role in Hamas'
World Vision denied that Halabi had any role in Hamas and claimed the organization “condemns any and all acts of terrorism or support for such activities. We reject any attempt to divert humanitarian resources or exploit the work of aid organisations operating anywhere, and we do not see evidence of these things in this case.”
World Vision claimed in 2017, following the conclusion of an externally conducted forensic investigation, that there had been no evidence to suggest Halabi had been working for Hamas or diverting funds. NGO Monitor reviewed the group’s financial records at the time and, in contrast with the external audit, concluded World Vision’s financial records of its Israel-registered non-profit branch were internally inconsistent and included information on payments to Hamas operatives.
According to the court ruling, Halabi was recruited by Abu Cuchba of Hamas in 2004 and initially worked as a soldier for the terror group along with his brother Diya, before eventually joining World Vision in 2005. Halabi, who has since been released as part of the February 2025 hostage-ceasefire deal, was acquitted of one charge of assisting the enemy.
In the 2022 verdict, the court said that Halabi intentionally diverted large volumes of iron, plastic, and digging tools to Hamas to assist it with digging terror tunnels and that in 2012, Halabi twice visited terror tunnels, in one case providing a Hamas operative with $20,000 to repair tunnels.
Hamas’s NGO committee, in a document dated April 15, 2020, advised that all World Vision staff should be denied access through the crossing.
A copy of Mehdi’s interrogation was also found on Halabi’s laptop, which, along with a confession he later withdrew, led to his conviction.
“Hundreds of Hamas documents detail the close links between the terror group and the aid providers, like World Vision Australia. These organizations and the governments that funded many of them failed to ensure even minimal oversight or transparency. This made it easy for Hamas to manipulate aid groups through people like el Halabi and divert substantial resources to terror, instead of intended recipients,” NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg told The Post.
World Vision has not yet responded to the request for comment.
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.