Reported by Ian Talley

The U.S., Israel and more than a dozen allies created a task force on terror financing following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Since then, they have used sanctions to target Hamas financiers, currency exchanges and corporate networks, as well as offering multimillion-dollar bounties for information on financial facilitators.

But now, more than four months later, the U.S. has yet to act against many nonprofit groups that Israel says are run by Hamas, including charities in the U.S. and Europe. These groups have directed tens of millions of dollars to Gaza since the war began, according to current and former Western officials.

The U.S. and others have acted against a number of the organizations flagged by Israel, said a senior U.S. official, but in a lot of cases “allies have been asking for credible evidence for a long time, but are still waiting.”

The disagreement over the charities comes as the U.S. pushes for a cease-fire in Gaza in the midst of mounting Palestinian deaths and a worsening humanitarian crisis, as well as a debate over Israeli allegations linking United Nations Relief and Works Agency staff to Hamas. Washington and other Western capitals suspended aid to Unrwa after Israel said 12 of the organization’s staffers were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas assault.

The U.S. intelligence community has found it likely that some Unrwa workers took part in the attack but has so far not substantiated claims that a large number of the agency’s workers are tied to the militant group.

When it comes to the multitude of other organizations aiding Gaza, U.S. officials say they distinguish between real and fake charities, but are cautious of overreach that could target legitimate humanitarian nonprofits and play into Hamas propaganda.

The debate, however, centers around which charities are linked to Hamas and which are funding purely humanitarian work in Gaza. For example, Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing, the Ministry of Defense unit responsible for disrupting terror funding, lists a number of fundraising campaigns hosted by Michigan-based LaunchGood, a nonprofit that crowdsources funding for some of the largest Muslim charities in the world. 

LaunchGood hosts a Muslim Aid USA campaign and nearly two dozen other accounts that Israel says is tied to Hamas. It has also hosted campaigns for rebuilding Jewish cemeteries and for victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018.

The U.S. hasn’t taken action against any of the campaigns or charities on the fundraising platform. LaunchGood, which disputes Israel’s allegations, said it has established a vigorous compliance program in part because of the special scrutiny that Islamic groups have come under in the U.S.

Read full report: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-israel-at-odds-over-claims-by-charities-linked-to-hamas-50b4cd16