The Israeli national security agency, Shin Bet has revealed in an investigation that European funds that were meant for humanitarian aid were instead diverted to the financing of terrorist activities by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organisation in Judea and Samaria.
During the course of the inquiry – executed in cooperation with the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli police – a financing mechanism for the PFLP terrorist organisation was uncovered that operated by exploiting funds that were transferred by European humanitarian assistance agencies and European NGOs.
Furthermore, the probe revealed that the funding was transferred to Palestinian institutions and organisations in the West Bank, which in reality are closely linked with the PFLP although they operate under the facade of humanitarian work. Central to all these institutions is an organisation that goes by the name of the “Health Work Committee”.
In Shin Bet’s analysis of the various parties involved, it became clear that these organisations defrauded and deceived several European countries so that they could obtain extensive amounts of funding, of the order of millions of euro.
The probe also revealed that much of the funding actually went to fund PFLP terrorist activities.
How was this done?
PFLP institutions deceived humanitarian assistance organisations in Europe through numerous methods – by reporting on nonexistent projects, transferring fake documents, forging and inflating invoices, diverting tenders, forging documents and bank signatures, reporting exaggerated salary levels, and more. The large amounts of funding that were received were send on as payments for the families of PFLP martyrs, wages for operatives, the recruitment of new members for the organisation, the furthering and promotion of the organisation’s terrorist activities in Jerusalem, the promotion and promulgation of the organisation’s propaganda and ideology, and more.
During the course of Shin Bet’s investigation, the suspects provided a large amount of material attesting to the scope of the fraud that PFLP institutions carried out against European countries. This material points to the redirection of considerable amounts of funding, received from official government bodies in Europe, towards the financing of the PFLP’s organisational and militant terrorist undertakings in the West Bank.
Commenting on the findings, a senior Shin Bet official said, “The comprehensive financial activities that the PFLP has carried out join a long list of terrorist activities which have been neutralised by the Shin Bet in recent years. The PFLP is a murderous terrorist organisation that was responsible for the bombing attack in 2019 in which Rina Shnerb Z”L was murdered while visiting the Ein Bubin spring with her family. The Shin Bet will continue to work towards the advance neutralisation of the terrorist and financial infrastructures of the PFLP, an organisation which constantly works to undermine security stability in the West Bank and to promote organisational and militant terrorist activities against Israel“.
Four Palestinians are to be charged in the military court in Judea in the next few days.
By Editorial
