Hamas Spied on World Vision Employees to Disrupt Gaza Aid Director’s Trial

Jerusalem, 12 February, 2026 (TPS-IL) -- Internal Hamas documents seized by Israeli soldiers and reviewed by experts reveal that the terror group spied on and interrogated the staff of World Vision to obstruct the trial of the charity’s former Gaza director, Mohammed el-Halabi, according to newly analyzed materials published by NGO-Monitor. The development sharpens concerns that U.S. and Australian funds earmarked for humanitarian aid were diverted to Hamas.

“The Hamas documents make clear that the attacks on Israel’s justice system from the human rights industry and its allies were baseless and cynical. The Hamas documents prove the direct links to el-Halabi, and the intense effort made to obstruct his trial,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO-Monitor, told The Press Service of Israel. NGO-Monitor is a Jerusalem-based non-profit that monitors the activities of non-governmental organizations.

The declassified documents, captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over the past two years and reviewed by NGO-Monitor, detail Hamas’ monitoring of closed-door Israeli court proceedings, efforts to identify suspected leakers, and measures to prevent potential witnesses from reaching Israel.

Several reports, authored by Hamas’ Ministry of Interior and National Security, allege that Halabi used his senior role in the agency to secretly work for Hamas. Halabi was arrested by Israel in June 2016 and convicted in 2022 of diverting millions of dollars in humanitarian aid and materials to Hamas. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and released in February 2025 as part of a prisoner-hostage swap.

At the time of Halabi’s detention and trial, World Vision was one of Australia’s largest aid partners in Gaza. World Vision is a U.S.-based Christian aid organization.

A March 11, 2020, report, seen by the Sydney Morning Herald, noted that Halabi “was in contact with [only a] very few parties of brothers in the positive [Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades]” and described urgent internal Hamas efforts to determine how Israeli authorities uncovered his activities. Another document, dated March 3, 2020, ordered the interrogation of World Vision staff suspected of cooperating with Israeli authorities and restrictions on their movements to prevent testimony.

The Beer-Sheva District Court found that a World Vision accountant, Mohammed Mehdi, reported Halabi’s diversion of funds to Hamas. According to the verdict, Mehdi’s account was supported by other evidence, and a copy of his Hamas interrogation was later recovered from Halabi’s personal computer. Much of the evidence introduced at trial was classified and remains publicly inaccessible.

Funneled $50 Million to Hamas

Specifically, Halabi was recruited by Hamas in 2004 to infiltrate World Vision. From the time World Vision hired him in 2005, he regularly met with Hamas operatives, who were especially interested in acquiring tools for digging tunnels. Halabi established and promoted humanitarian projects and fictitious agricultural associations that acted as cover for the illicit financial transfers.

An Israeli investigation revealed that the main method used to divert money to Hamas was putting out fictitious tenders for World Vision-sponsored projects in the Gaza Strip. The “winning” company was made aware that 60% of the project’s funds were to be designated for Hamas.

Halabi was convicted of transferring $50 million of World Vision funds to Hamas in 2022 and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided $39.9 million to World Vision Australia in 2022-23.

“Australia should review its own investigations and figure out where it went wrong. And going forward, donor governments like Australia should learn from past mistakes and implement real oversight mechanisms to ensure taxpayer dollars can no longer be funneled to proscribed terrorist groups,” Steinberg told TPS-IL.

Michael Danby, a former member of Australia’s House of Representatives and critic of World Vision, told TPS-IL, “Hopeless Australian Ministers of various political hues genuflected to trendy Australian pastors rather than take up this misbegotten use of Australian taxpayers’ funds.”

“World Vision’s sympathy and support ought to have been with their persecuted accountant, not trying to preserve their reputational vanity by shilling for World Vision-Hamas double agent Halabi. His crimes and these crucial new revelations in Hamas’ own words will be further grist for the mill of US Senator Chuck Grassley’s congressional investigations into the merits of World Vision’s tax-deductible status in the United States,” Danby added.

Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) has been pressing World Vision to explain exactly what happened to $491 million it received from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2022.

“It is paramount that U.S. dollars do not, in any way, shape, or form, fund or encourage terrorism. Through my investigations into World Vision and work to hold our government agencies accountable, my goal is to improve transparency and make sure every cent of taxpayer money is used as intended and not for illegal activity,” Sen. Grassley told TPS-IL in 2023.

Around 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken captive by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.