The Foreign Office has denied a report that $23 million from the British taxpayer may have flowed through Hamas as part of a UN programme.
Over the weekend, Israel’s Channel 12 aired a series of allegations raised by NGO Monitor regarding the cash assistance scheme in Gaza administered by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The programme provides money to Gazans living in poverty and is heavily funded by the UK government.
The report, though, suggested that a leaked Foreign Office document had revealed that the programme was facilitated by the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) in Gaza, which is part of the Hamas-run government.
The document supposedly showed that the department had assessed the risk of the involvement of the MoSD as “within its risk appetite” on the basis that the ministry’s involvement would be “limited to technical coordination with UNICEF”.
Summing up the document, NGO Monitor’s UN representative Anne Herzberg said: “In other words, a Hamas-controlled entity was an integral partner in determining how cash assistance provided by the UK government to UNICEF would be distributed in Gaza.”
However, the Foreign Office has fiercely denied this claim as inaccurate, suggesting that it is the result of a factual error.
According to the department the scheme is coordinated with the identically named MoSD in Ramallah, run by the Palestinian Authority, and not the one in Gaza that is linked to Hamas.
The same document published by NGO Monitor, which has not been verified, also shows that the “direct or indirect transfer of aid to the de facto authorities in Gaza”, that being Hamas, was ruled as beyond the government’s risk appetite.
The JC understands the Foreign Office is adamant that no funding was sent to the MoSD in Gaza and that the programme was coordinated with the PA and UNICEF only.
A Foreign Office spokesperson told the JC: “We categorically reject these allegations. The UK does not fund Hamas-run agencies in Gaza.
“The UNICEF programme is coordinated with the Ministry of Social Development in Ramallah, which is run by the Palestinian Authority. UK funding was provided through UNICEF directly to vulnerable households in Gaza.
“Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, and funding or supporting it is a crime.”
A UNICEF spokesperson added: “In addition to humanitarian supplies, UNICEF provides cash transfers to help the most vulnerable families buy essential items amid shortages, prioritising families with many children, families with disabled children, lactating mothers, and female-headed households.
“The UNICEF Cash Programme cooperates with the Ministry of Social Development Ramallah (Palestinian Authority) via its social registry, which was pre-cleared, checked and audited many times.
“Before making cash payments, UNICEF's financial service providers conduct checks against Anti-Money Laundering and sanction lists, automatically excluding any flagged names.”
