Israeli court convicts Spanish aid worker of terror funding

An Israeli military court on Wednesday convicted a Spanish aid worker of using her organisation as a cover to fund a Palestinian militant group, the defence and foreign ministries said.

Juana Rashmawi confessed as part of a plea bargain brought before the court in the occupied West Bank to her role as a “fund raiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)”, a statement from the ministries said.

In addition, Rashmawi said her organisation, the Union of Health Work Committees, was “a civilian arm of the PFLP, along with” six other groups recently outlawed, the Israeli statement said.

Detained in April, Rashmawi’s plea bargain involved a 13-month jail term and a fine of 50,000 shekels (about $16,000).

Rashmawi’s group had been banned in Israel in 2020.

Last month, Defence Minister Benny Gantz declared that Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International — Palestine (DCI-P), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) were fronts for the PFLP.

The PFLP is a Marxist group labelled a terrorist organisation by many Western states.

The designation of the prominent non-governmental organisations was met with widespread criticism from European governments funding them as well as from other rights groups.

“The donors, including countries and international organisations, were deceived and misled in a systematic and calculated manner in order to fund the terrorist organisation,” the Israeli statement said.

“The organisation’s activities were a significant and important source of funding for the PFLP.”

Israeli officials said Rashmawi’s conviction proved their accusations against the NGOs were correct.

“Terror-washing by using the cover of human rights activities is a double sin — it fuels terrorism and harms organisations that do important work,” Gantz said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Rashmawi’s “admission of guilt” proof to Israel’s claims of the groups serving conduits for PFLP funds, calling on the international community to “prevent terrorist organisations from using the veneer of civilian cover”.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused the ministers of “trying to spin” Rashmawi’s indictment to justify shutting down the six groups, saying they had failed to provide “a shred of evidence” to link the cases.

A 74-page dossier prepared by the Shin Bet internal security agency and seen by AFP appeared to lack clear evidence implicating the six groups in involvement with the PFLP.

An investigation by a European rights group published Monday found that Israeli-made Pegasus spyware was used to hack the phones of staff of the Palestinian civil society groups targeted by Israel.

US authorities last week put the Israeli maker of the spyware on a blacklist of restricted companies.