The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces arrested several operatives involved in running the Health Work Committees (HWC) during a joint operation lasting several weeks, the police announced on Friday.
The activists who were arrested were involved in the management of HWC, a key part of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s financial operations. Indictments have been filed against some of those involved, and more are expected to be filed in the coming weeks, police said.
Numerous HWC staff members, founders and board members have ties to the PFLP terrorist organization, NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute, has documented.
HWC has received millions in funding from European countries, claiming to provide health services to the Palestinian population, particularly the poor and the marginalized. It diverts that aid to PFLP. Israel has indicted HWC workers in the past for defrauding European countries of millions by fabricating aid projects.
In 2020, Israel designated the HWC a terrorist organization.
On July 7, 2021, Israel arrested HWC General Director Shatha Odeh for her alleged involvement in terrorist activity. Following her arrest, the IDF closed HWC’s offices for six months.
Given its 2020 terror designation, that it is still operating at all is “deeply troubling,” NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald M. Steinberg told JNS.
“Several of its senior officials and employees—including its former general director, former fundraiser and at least three individuals who held financial positions—have been convicted of terror-related offenses,” he said.
“Equally concerning is that several European countries, most notably Belgium, have continued to provide funding to HWC despite its designation,” Steinberg added.
“This is yet another example of how terror groups like the PFLP repeatedly exploit the NGO facade. We call on donor states to immediately halt any remaining funding to HWC, based on its leaders’ ongoing ties with the PFLP,” he said.
Israel began cracking down on HWC following the murder of 17-year-old Israeli teenager Rina Shnerb. Shnerb was killed by a roadside bomb in August 2019 while hiking with her father and brother in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
Walid Hanatsheh, HWC’s finance and administration manager, was arrested in October 2019 for participating in the attack.
