(JNS) Israel came under criticism when, in 2016, it arrested World Vision’s Gaza director, Mohammed El Halabi, for working with Hamas. European diplomats, United Nations officials and so-called “humanitarian” NGOs accused Israel of condemning an innocent man.

On Wednesday, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group revealed that Halabi was, in fact, guilty.

It is the latest revelation from a trove of declassified internal Hamas memos pored over by NGO Monitor.

Three documents from Hamas’s Ministry of Interior and National Security (MoINS) prove that Halabi, who served as World Vision’s director of Gaza operations, was an operative of Hamas and guilty of diverting aid to the terror group.

In a March 2020 document, a Hamas agency said that Halabi was in contact with several “brothers” from the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s “military” wing.

Hamas viewed his “arrest and trial as a major breach of internal security,” NGO Monitor found. The terror group did its best to tamper with the trial.

“Our monitoring and coordination with all relevant parties in the case had a role in thwarting multiple schemes to bring about the conviction of Mohammed Halabi,” according to an internal Hamas document.

The documents showed that Hamas monitored Israeli court proceedings, tracked down and questioned suspected informants in Gaza, and sought to stop potential witnesses from traveling to Israel to testify, NGO Monitor said.

On June 15, 2016, Halabi was arrested by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) while crossing into Gaza. He was charged with diverting $50 million to terrorist groups.

“According to the indictment against him, Halabi used fictitious humanitarian projects and agricultural associations to act as a cover for the hijacking of monies and materials to Hamas,” NGO Monitor said.

On June 15, 2022, exactly four years after his arrest and despite Hamas’s efforts to derail the trial, Halabi was convicted by the Beersheva District Court on multiple terror-related charges, including supplying Hamas with construction materials for building (and concealing) military sites and tunnels, obtaining weapons, gathering intelligence on Israeli positions, diverting funds, employing Hamas members, and rigging the World Vision tender process to support the organization.

The Beersheva court handed Halabi a 12-year sentence, but on Feb. 1, 2025, he was released as part of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal. According to Britain’s The Guardian, Halabi was born in Gaza. NGO Monitor told JNS that he is likely there now.

The court proceedings took place behind closed doors so as not to compromise security sources. This opened Israel up to criticism from rights groups, which rushed to Halabi’s defense.

On May 17, 2023, Amnesty International, known for its anti-Israel bias, described Halabi as a “prisoner of conscience.” It claimed he had “dedicated his life to supporting and empowering children and people with disabilities.”

Australian interest

As most of World Vision’s funding to Gaza came from World Vision Australia at that time, Australia took a special interest in the case.

On June 16, 2022, a day after the court handed down its sentence, then-World Vision Australia CEO Tim Costello, a Baptist minister, declared in an op-ed he co-authored in The Sydney Morning Herald, “The verdict overnight announces the demise of the rule of law in Israeli courts.”

Costello insisted that Halabi was “an innocent man” and that there was “no substantial evidence” presented to support the charges against him.

In a Feb. 12 report about the Hamas documents, The Sydney Morning Herald said it had reached out to Costello, who declined to comment.

Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, insisted in a statement that “the Hamas documents clearly demonstrate that attacks on the Israeli justice system from the leaders of World Vision Australia were part of a fabricated smear campaign.”

World Vision International, whose annual revenue in 2023 was $3.5 billion, ceased its operations in Gaza in 2016 due to Halabi’s arrest. It said it had initiated an independent audit that year to investigate. Completed in July 2017, it claimed that the audit “found no evidence of diversion of funds and no material evidence that El-Halabi was part of, or working for Hamas.”

 “World Vision’s investigation was private and opaque. It is unclear how this investigation was conducted, what materials were reviewed, and the mandate from World Vision,” NGO Monitor told JNS.

The Australian government, which had been funding World Vision Australia, suspended funding in the immediate wake of Harabi’s arrest. But in 2022-23, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) gave the group $39.9 million (AUS), or $28.3 million (US).

“Gaza reconstruction will be a test for Australia and other donor governments, and for the aid industry, including powerful NGOs,” Steinberg told JNS. “Will they learn from this and other failures, and cooperate with Israel on real oversight mechanisms to ensure taxpayer dollars are no longer diverted to terrorists?”

World Vision International has also come under scrutiny in the United States. In a 2020 investigation, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) found that World Vision had unknowingly worked with the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), an organization sanctioned by the US since 2004 for funding terrorist activities.

“Ignorance can’t suffice as an excuse,” Grassley said at the time.

In 2023, Grassley sent a letter to World Vision International seeking information about its audit following the conviction of Halabi. Noting that World Vision did not make the audit public, Grassley demanded an unredacted copy.

“In 2022, World Vision received $491 million in ‘food, non-food commodities and cash’ from the US government. Additionally, World Vision is the ‘sixth largest implementor of USAID grants,’” he said.

“Congress and the American people deserve transparency with respect to the steps World Vision has taken to ensure taxpayer money is used as intended and not for illegal activity,” he added.

Although Grassley has repeated his request for the audit from World Vision, the organization has yet to provide it to him or his staff.

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