DfID has given £27 million to a charity whose lead organiser in Gaza has just been arrested for funnelling 60% of his budget to Hamas. World Vision’s Mohammed El-Halabi was seized in an operation by Israeli intelligence and is accused of moving “tens of millions” of aid money to Hamas’ military wing. A Hamas member, Halabi allegedly “infiltrated” World Vision in 2005 with the explicit intention to steal money and funnel it to fighters. He gave £5.5 million every year to the terror group – including 40% of the charity’s civilian project fund. World Vision is funded by the British taxpayer through DfiD’s aid programme. That’s the first budget for Priti Patel to shut down then…

UPDATE: Luke Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel, says:

“Kind-hearted Brits have given tens of thousands of pounds to a Christian charity to help needy children in Gaza, only to find out they were duped and their money stolen and diverted to fund Hamas’s terrorist activities. It’s outrageous that instead of helping Gazan children being fed and clothed, Hamas prefers to build terrorist infrastructure, dig attack tunnels into Israel, pay their terrorist fighters and buy missiles that will be used against Israeli civilians.”

UPDATE II: A DfID spokesman says that money given to World Vision was not designed to go to the Palestinian Territories, however they concede they did give money to the charity’s Gaza appeal in 2014 as part of the Disaster Emergency Committee. They cannot rule out that some of this money may have found its way into Halabi’s hands…