US charity guilty of funding Hamas
Al Jazeera

A US court has convicted a Muslim charity and five of its former leaders of all 108 charges in the largest "terrorism" financing trial in US history.

The Texas jury reached its verdict on Monday after eight days of deliberations over whether the former Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the largest US Muslim charity, had given money to the Palestinian group Hamas.

The charity, which was shut down seven years ago, was accused of giving more than $12m to support Hamas, which was designated a "terrorist organisation" in 1995 by the US government.

The hour-long verdict, following a seven-week trial, came after a first trial ended in October 2007 with one man acquitted on 31 charges but jurors unable to agree on verdicts for others.

Several relatives of those convicted on Monday wept as the verdict was read out in the Dallas courtroom, with one woman shouting "my father is not a criminal".

Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the
charity's ex-chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 charges, including
supporting a specially-designated "terrorist" organisation, money-laundering and tax fraud, The Associated Press reported.

Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted on three counts of
conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted on one count of conspiracy
to support a "terrorist organisation".

The Holy Land foundation itself was convicted on all 32 counts.

'Political' case

While prosecutors said the foundation raised money for Hamas they did not accuse the charity of directly financing or being involved in "terrorist" activity.

"When you're supposed to be able to face your accusers fully and against secret evidence and secret witness, I think that leads to reasonable doubt"

Lydia Gonzalez,
League of United Latin American Citizens

Prosecutors said the charity was spreading Hamas's ideology by funding schools, hospitals and social welfare programmes controlled by the group in the Palestinian territories, and permitting it to divert funds to the activities of fighters.
However, the charity's supporters said the government was politicising the case as part of its so-called war on terror and ignoring the foundation's charitable mission in providing aid to the poverty-stricken Palestinian territories.

Government officials had raided Holy Land's headquarters in December 2001, and George Bush, the US president, later announced the seizure of the charity's assets as "another step in the war on terrorism".

But defence lawyers said their clients had been put on trial partly because of their family ties to members of Hamas - Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's political leader exiled in Syria, is the brother of defendant Mufid Abdulqader.

Unidentified Israeli witness

Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman, reporting from Dallas, Texas, where the court case took place, said a former US state department official testified that he was never told that Hamas directed the US charity during intelligence briefings.

But an unidentified Israeli witness told the court that the aid was funnelled through Hamas channels.

Lydia Gonzalez of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the defendants did not get a fair trial.

"When you're supposed to be able to face your accusers fully and against secret evidence and secret witness, I think that leads to reasonable doubt."

Muslim groups say the prosecution has made American Muslims more hesitant to fulfil their religious obligation of helping the needy and the foundation's defenders accuse the government of selectively prosecuting the charity.

"The same charities that these guys gave to the American Red Cross is still giving to, the USAID is still giving to," Mustafaa Carroll of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said.

Texas is the Holy Land? It's Bush's fault.

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GAZA CITY:

The top United Nations human rights official on Tuesday called on Israel to immediately lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, as invading tanks from the Jewish state sparked retaliatory rocket fire from the coastal territory. "By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months," the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.

"This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now," she said.

Israel first imposed a large-scale blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Hamas movement won legislative elections in 2006. The Jewish state further tightened its siege of the impoverished territory after the Islamists ousted their Fatah rivals following reports in the Arab press of an impending US-backed offensive by the secular party to topple Hamas in the strip.

Amid mounting pressure from the international community, Israel last week allowed limited industrial fuel to be delivered to Gaza's sole power plant and on Monday it let in 33 truckloads of humanitarian and other basic supplies.

Israel condemned Pillay's call as "utterly shortsighted" and sidestepped the call to end the siege by saying she had not addressed the issue of rocket fire targeting Israel.

"It is disappointing to see the high commissioner fall victim to Hamas' cynical manipulation of the media, and reprint blatant misinformation in her press release," said a statement by the Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva.

The statement did not address how such "misinformation" would have trumped reports from other UN agencies - as well as scores of human rights groups - backing up Pillay's description of the situation in Gaza.

Pillay said that "only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today."

"Decisive steps must be taken to preserve the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population, more than half of which are children."

Other UN and EU officials have deemed the Israeli blockade as collective punishment of a civilian population, an act illegal under international law which the Geneva Conventions defines as a war crime.

Limited food distribution to half the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million population resumed on Tuesday, although the United Nations warned aid supplies would soon run out unless Israel eases its blockade.

"Distribution will go on of the very small amount we brought in on Monday," said UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness.
"The supplies will last days, not weeks," he told AFP.

Crowds rushed to the UNRWA distribution centers to try to get hold of the limited supplies of flour, sugar, rice, powdered milk and luncheon meat.
"I can't wait to receive the aid. Our lives are in ruins," said Umm Said, 60, who with her husband looks after 15 children and grandchildren.

On Monday, the first shipment of supplies in two weeks made it possible to resume limited food distribution after a four-day interruption, but Israel again sealed off the Palestinian territory on Tuesday.

UNRWA, which feeds 750,000 people in the impoverished sliver of land, said thousands of dollars worth of powdered milk were lost after Israeli officials slashed the packages for inspection.

"Babies should not be punished by being deprived of milk. I am not aware of babies firing rockets or baby milk being used to power rockets," said Gunness, adding that food would run out in days unless new supplies are allowed in.

Another UNRWA official has cast doubt on the Israeli pretense of rocket fire for sealing off the territory, noting that no such closure was in effect in the beginning of 2006 when Israel was hit with many more rockets than are currently coming out of Gaza.

An Egyptian-mediated truce signed in June had virtually halted rocket attacks on Israel. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel was to greatly ease its siege, a commitment the Jewish state never complied with.
Israel shattered the truce on November 4 with an invasion of the coastal territory that killed seven Hamas members. The stark violation prompted Gazan fighters to resume rocket fire.

On Tuesday, Israeli armored vehicles came under mortar attack as they invaded southern Gaza in what an Israeli military spokesman described as a search for explosive devices along the border fence.

Hamas claimed it fired a rocket at the vehicles.

Later, Gaza militants fired three rockets that exploded in open areas in southern Israel, causing no casualties or damage, the Israeli Army said.
Israeli officials indicated the crossings were to remain closed on Tuesday.
"This decision has been taken by Defense Minister Ehud Barak because of the continued Palestinian rocket fire at southern Israel," said Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman.

The Israeli Parliament is to return from its winter recess to hold a special session on the Gaza violence next Monday, a spokesman said. The session was called at the request of the right-wing opposition.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli Navy arrested Palestinian fishermen and foreign activists off the coast of Gaza on Tuesday, the Israeli military and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said.

"This morning a number of Palestinian boats carrying ISM members deviated from the fishing zone off the Gaza coast," an Israeli military spokeswoman said.

ISM said the boats were 7 nautical miles (13 kilometers) from shore when confronted by the navy, pointing out this was well within the fishing limits set in the 1994 Oslo Accords.

Under the Israeli-Palestinian agreements, Gaza fishermen were allowed to go as far as 20 nautical miles offshore, but Israel has in recent years reneged on that agreement and reduced this to just 6.

The Israeli Navy regularly forces Gaza fishermen to turn back, often by firing machine guns at the civilian vessels.

The Israeli spokeswoman said those aboard the boats were held for questioning after they refused to turn back.

ISM said the 14 fishermen and three human rights observers, who were aboard three boats, were transferred to Israeli warships.

It said Briton Andrew Muncie, Vittorio Arrigoni from Italy and American national Darlene Wallach were volunteers accompanying Palestinian fishermen, "who are regularly attacked by Israeli Navy vessels from as little as 3 kilometers offshore."

The three had sailed from Cyprus with other pro-Palestinian activists on August 23 in defiance of the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The Israeli armed forces said: "ISM is known for its provocative action and for being in contact with terror organizations."

ISM is a Palestinian-led movement of volunteers committed to nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
It mobilizes international volunteers for often symbolic actions, such as blockade-defying boat trips to Gaza. - AFP, with The Daily Star

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