Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon will call on the UN Security Council to suspend UN funding for the anti-Israeli NGO B’Tselem, Israel’s Army Radio reported Wednesday morning. In his speech before a special session of the UNSC on the Middle East, Danon will reveal the funding provided the leftwing NGO by the UN, blaming the latter for orchestrating attacks on Israel through this funding. “It is no coincidence that this specific organization is invited to speak at the UN, to damage the State of Israel,” Danon will tell the special Thursday session.
On a related topic, Danon announced on Tuesday a new “political struggle against aid money which is transferred to Hamas in Gaza.” He noted that intelligence reaching Israeli security forces points to a worrisome increase of humanitarian funds ending up in Hamas hands. “Today we launch a political war against funding Hamas terror infrastructure with money from aid organization,” Danon declared, adding, “We will not rest until the UN and the aid organizations keep track of every dollar being transferred to the Gaza Strip.”
Danon said that he had approached directly the UN secretary-general regarding the creation of control mechanisms to stop the leakage of funds into the hands of Hamas. He also called on international aid organizations to do the same. In recent months, Israeli security forces detained two Arab officials of international aid groups who confessed to diverting tens of millions of dollars in aid money to Hamas. Israel has reported that Hamas invests $110 million annually in constructing terror tunnels, using, among other sources, International aid money.
“We must put an end to the unacceptable phenomenon whereby the international community believes it is funding hothouse construction while, in reality, the money goes to digging tunnels and buying arms,” the envoy said.
At the same time, Danon also praised the forum of donor countries to the Palestinian Authority, whose annual meeting is coming up, saying “Israel welcomes the contribution of these countries to the Palestinian Authority and sees great value in it.”