Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested two individuals—a 55-year-old man and his 25-year-old daughter—suspected of helping finance the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist militant organization Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
The father and daughter, believed by the Public Prosecutor Service (OM) to have funneled some €5.5 million to organizations linked to the armed Palestinian group, were arrested by agents from the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), the agency responsible for investigating financial crimes, on Thursday, June 22nd, the public broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) reports.
Police, upon searching a residence in Leidschendam and the premises of a business in Rotterdam, seized large amounts of cash and a bank balance of approximately 750,000 euros.
The father-daughter pair, according to the Public Prosecution Service, are involved with a foundation previously sanctioned by authorities for transferring funds to organizations with ties to Hamas. Because Hamas has been classified as a terrorist organization since 2017, transferring money to the organization, directly or via front organizations, is punishable by law.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) initially launched the investigation some time ago following reports of abnormal money transactions and newspaper articles about a fundraiser in Europe for Hamas.
Although Hamas itself is not present in the Netherlands, there are several pro-Palestinian organizations operating in the country, a number of which, according to the Public Prosecution Service, serve as key links in the international network that amasses funds for an organization whose stated goal is to “liberate Palestine from the Israeli occupation.”
While neither the Dutch authorities nor the press mentioned the sanctioned foundation the two suspects are believed to be involved in by name, an organization previously targeted by Dutch authorities for its connections to terrorist organizations is the Palestinian NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).
A report from the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor revealed that the Dutch government in 2020 halted €8 million in funding to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a designated terror group with links to Hamas. The UAWC, according to USAID-audit, is the “agricultural arm” of the PFLP.
According to a report from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, as of July 2022, the PFLP, along with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was working to establish a “National Liberation Front in an attempt to address internal divisions and cooperate with and to rebuild the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).”
Prior to the Dutch government halting all funding to the group, the UAC in 2013 and 2020 received some $20 million from the Netherlands.
