The US and Israel allowed tax-deductible donations to groups blocking Gaza aid

Recently, under pressure from America, Israel has agreed to provide sizable amounts of aid to the Gaza Strip, which was badly damaged by war. Nonetheless, both the US and Israel have allowed tax-exempt funding to organizations involved in ensuring that such assistance does not get to the Gaza Strip. 

 Original investigations carried out by the Associated Press and Shmrom, an Israel-based investigative site, show that three organizations that are preventing humanitarian supplies from getting to Gaza have received over $200,000 from donors in the US and Israel. 

These are och as does foresee Generosity constitutions tax-deductible, contradict Upgrade commitments in both nations to liberate interference to any deserve to deliver of necessities such as food, water, and medicine to the Gaza strip. This has been so even with one of these groups being condemned by the US through sanctions. 

 Tania Hary, Gisha’s executive director, an Israeli human rights organization working to improve the situation in Gaza, scolded for such an approach. “If you are on the one hand acknowledging you are permitting aid in but at the same time encouraging entities that are preventing it, can you indeed term it as enabling aid?” she asked. 

 Officials within the Israeli government did not return a request for comment, and The U. S. State Department reaffirmed the agencies’ dedication to providing the supplies and services; however, they declined to comment on the fundraising by the far-right groups. 

 Israel says that it does not prevent humanitarian assistance from reaching people inside Gaza and puts the blame on the United Nations for not delivering thousands of trucks of supplies that have gotten to the territory. Yet the UN and other aid organizations have claimed that constant military operations, lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, and slow Israeli searches often bar deliveries. 

 The three groups the AP and Shomrim looked into have prevented the food supply by stopping trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is Gaza’s only entry point for aid. Even though they are not necessarily the ones chiefly responsible for preventing the delivery of aid, such groups act with the facilitation of some Israeli personalities, for example, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist of the current Israeli Minister of National Security. 

One organization, Mother’s March, has received over $125,000 on the Israeli crowdfunding website Givechack and an additional $13,000 on JGive, an American and Israeli crowdfunding service. Both of these donations are also tax-deductible. Mother’s March does not directly fundraise for an organization but rather employs and operates in tandem with an allied organization, Torat Lechima, which is also affiliated with radical nationalist circles that aim to strengthen the ‘Jewishness’ and combativeness of IDF soldiers. 

 Another group known as Tzav 9 collected over $85,000 from nearly 1,500 people through JGive before the latter was banned. Since then, JGive has put a hold on these donations. In Tzav 9, they have been engaged in violently proactively putting up barricades, stoning aid trucks, and throwing away shipments. Later, the US banned two of the group’s co-founders, and the EU reciprocated shortly afterward. 

 The Israeli police, with the incitement of Ben-Gvir, have apprehended a few persons for these activities, though Tzav 9 has shut down recently. Tzav 9 justified the demonstrations as legal and democratic while referring to the US sanctions as anti-democratic interference. Neither Mother’s March nor Torat Lechima answered the interview invitations. 

 Sanctions violators may be subject to asset freezes and bans on travel or visas, but the impact of the measures is somewhat questionable. Other extreme Israelis living in the occupied Palestinian territories or the West Bank claim that the same measures also have little effect because of the support the settlers receive from more Israeli leadership in the evasion of these measures. 

 Netanyahu’s office did not wish to comment, and the Justice Ministry, which has a portfolio on non-profits, said it would investigate and declined further comment. JGive claimed that it complies with all laws in Israel, and it was also stated that the Mother’s March campaign was completed more than four months ago. 

 Although their activities have recently subsided, Hary from Gisha said that the preparations made by these groups could at any time be resumed. “They are receiving messages from different sections within the government that Gaza should be fully isolated,” they said.