A Palestinian boy protests outside the illegal settlement of Modiin Illit. (Photo: Majdi Mohammed / Alamy)
Exclusive: Six British charities appear to funnel donations to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank
Six registered British charities are openly fundraising for activities and infrastructure in illegal Israeli settlements, a Declassified investigation has found.
Two of the charities explicitly state in their publicly available filings with the Charity Commission that they are supporting specific settlements in the occupied West Bank. Others feature illegal settlements in their names.
Altogether, they appear to have sent more than £1.7 million to recipients in settlements over the past three years, although the figure could be much higher.
The findings raise further questions about the quality of the commission’s oversight following recent reports, including several by Declassified, which have revealed the role UK charities play in facilitating the flow of money to settlement-supporting organisations.
“The government and regulators have been far too slow to confront the systematic issue of UK charitable funds supporting settlements,” said Shaima Dallali, legal researcher from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP).
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The ICJP has already filed a formal complaint with the Commission and the Metropolitan Police about one of the charities flagged by Declassified and is reviewing the others.
Dallali said there are “legitimate questions” about how charities were able to operate “without apparent regulatory intervention”.
Medics care for patients at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) treating severe injuries and burns sustained in Israeli bombardment, at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
“Support for Israel requires you to be against everything good in this world, like an organization which sends doctors to conflict areas to save human lives,” said one observer.
Doctors Without Borders on Saturday condemned allegations made by a British pro-Israel lobby group, which called on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to investigate and potentially proscribe the group, whose medical providers and other humanitarian workers provide lifesaving aid in 70 countries and have worked in Palestine during Israel’s assault there.
As The Telegraph reported, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKFLI) wrote to Mahmood as well as the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator, calling on the Labour government to investigate Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The group claimed at least two of MSF’s workers who were killed by Israeli forces, physiologist Fadi Al Wadiya and driver Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al Shalfouh, had connections to terrorist groups in Gaza.
Palestine Islamic Jihad published a poster earlier this year naming Wadiya as a “martyr commander,” and UKFLI claimed Al Shalfouh was a sniper for a Hamas battalion.
MSF acknowledged the poster regarding Wadiya in February and said the medical group “had no indication that Fadi Al Wadiya might have been involved in military activity of any kind prior to his killing by the Israeli Forces.”
“If the Israeli authorities had any reliable information about Fadi’s involvement in military activity, they never shared it with MSF either prior to his killing or when we reached out immediately after he was killed to ask for clarifications around the circumstances of his death,” the group added. “We would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity. Any employee who engages in military activity would pose a danger to our staff and patients.”
UKFLI sent its report on MSF to Mahmood asking her to ban the group, as the Labour government proscribed the protest group Palestine Action last year, labeling it a terrorist group under the Terrorism Act. The government took that action after members of the group vandalized planes at a military base.
The designation put Palestine Action on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda in the UK and made membership of the group—or even expressions of support for it—punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The demand for the same designation for MSF, said former British Army general Charlie Herbert, was “absolutely grotesque.”
This is grotesque. Absolutely grotesque. There is no more impartial an organisation than @MSF. From Afghanistan to Sierra Leone, they never once failed to impress with their neutrality, impartiality and absolute commitment to humanitarian support. This is complete madness. https://t.co/L6A4LFiXfM
MSF doctors and healthcare workers have treated thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since Israel began its onslaught there in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. At least 15 people working with the organization have been killed by Israeli forces. The group is also currently providing humanitarian and medical aid in Sudan as the civil war there has displaced millions of people and collapsed the healthcare system; in Yemen as the conflict between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government troops has escalated; and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing an Ebola outbreak as well as humanitarian crises exacerbated by years of conflict.
“I work in aid, and when people ask who to support I always say MSF,” said researcher and activist Philip Proudfoot. “MSF, wherever I’ve been, are right there on the front, in dangerous conditions, in isolated outposts, providing life-saving support. They’re heroes. UK lawyers for Israel are not fit to wash their scrubs.”
US-based researcher Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said the report by UKLFI demonstrates that “support for Israel requires you to be against everything good in this world, like an organization which sends doctors to conflict areas to save human lives.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Elbit has an MoD contract to provide a simulation trainer for Challenger 3 tanks (Photo: Stephen Bardens / Alamy)
Ed Miliband’s decision to leave the military relationship with Israel intact raises serious concerns about Britain’s compliance with international law.
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Genocide scholar Martin Shaw told Declassified: “The government’s acceptance that the occupation is illegal means that it should act against Israel itself, not just the settlers it has installed.
“The ICJ was clear that states must do nothing that provides ‘aid or assistance’ to Israel in maintaining the occupation, and must ‘ensure that any impediment’ that the occupation causes to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination ‘is brought to an end’.
“Through the UK’s military alliance with Israel and its comprehensive military-industrial cooperation, Labour still appears to be failing in these legal duties, despite Miliband’s announcements”.
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Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, told Declassified: “This important investigation exposes precisely why the UK government’s recent measures are largely performative and designed to whitewash the multifaceted, shameless complicity of the UK with Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“The UK has failed to end the economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory, as it is obliged to do in order to comply with the ICJ ruling.
“It is absurd for the UK to sanction settlements while simultaneously purchasing and integrating Israeli surveillance and weapon systems that are field-tested on Palestinians into its own armed forces.
“Comparing these largely symbolic measures with the far-reaching sanctions imposed by the UK on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine affirms the UK’s colonial hypocrisy and loss of credibility on the international stage”.
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In addition to military collaboration, Britain’s intelligence relationship with Israel will be untouched, according to Miliband, and there are no signs that either the 2020 UK-Israel military cooperation agreement, nor the 2023 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations will be suspended.
In response to Britain’s sanctions, Israel has said it will close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, remove UK representatives from the International Gaza Support Centre in Kiryat Gat, and terminate Britain’s role in training Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank.
Omar Barghouti added: “The UK has very clear obligations under international law, as triggered by the ICJ decisions of 2024 about Israel’s plausible genocide and its illegal occupation and apartheid.
“The UK must end all military, intelligence, trade, financial, academic and other relations with Israel that enable its illegal occupation, apartheid or genocide, as the ICJ has called for”.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy speaks during a press conference on September 02, 2026. [Mostafa Darwish – Anadolu Agency]
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has backed a bloc-wide ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, calling it a justified “principled stance,” Anadolu reports.
In an interview with The Irish Times on Thursday, Kallas said there was broad agreement among EU foreign ministers that expanding Israeli settlements violated international law.
“When Crimea was occupied, then it was very clear — it’s illegal, we don’t recognize this,” she said. “We should have the same principled stance — you know this is illegal, everybody agrees, so we should stop trading with Occupied (Palestinian) Territories.”
Kallas said an EU ban on imports from Israeli settlements would not require the unanimous backing of all 27 member states.
As the proposed ban could be introduced as a trade measure rather than a foreign policy decision, it would require a qualified majority of at least 15 member states representing roughly two-thirds of the bloc’s population.
The EU has previously struggled to approve sanctions against Israel because foreign policy measures require unanimity.
Kallas said the European Commission was under “very clear” pressure from national governments to propose a settlement trade ban and that EU foreign ministers were waiting for the bloc’s executive body to act.
Although the volume of trade originating from Israeli settlements was limited, a ban would deliver an important symbolic message, she added.
Kallas acknowledged that member states had differing positions on relations with Israel and said there were “pros and cons” to acting before Israel’s parliamentary elections in late October.
She added that EU members agreed on supporting a two-state solution and ensuring that humanitarian aid reached Palestinians without being politicized.
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Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
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Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide gives a speech in Brussels, Belgium on December 3, 2025. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]]
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide warned that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken Israel to a “very dangerous place,” Anadolu reports.
In remarks to Euronews in Riga, Latvia published on Friday, Eide described the current Israeli government as “the most far-right government in Israel’s history” and expressed hope that the country would eventually recognize it had been on a “very dangerous track,” regardless of the outcome of elections scheduled for October.
Eide also criticized Western countries’ response to conflicts in the Middle East, arguing that they “undermined” their credibility through what he called a “wobbly, unclear and unprincipled” approach.
“The problem has been that too many countries have been careful in criticizing Israel because you were so easily attacked for being anti-Semitic,” he said, adding that this pushed the international community toward “less daring positions.”
His remarks came days after Norway joined 11 other countries in announcing plans to introduce restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Norway recognized Palestine in 2024.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him UpUK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception .
