JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities on Thursday charged a Spanish woman under the country’s anti-terrorism laws, accusing her of funneling large sums of donations from European governments to a banned Palestinian militant group.
Juana Ruiz Sánchez was charged in a West Bank military court. Her indictment was the culmination of a more than year-long investigation into financing for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The group is regarded by Israel, the United States, Canada, and European Union as a terrorist organization.
Ruiz, a Spanish citizen and West Bank resident, has worked for Health Work Committees, a Palestinian non-governmental organization that provides medical services in the territory.
She was indicted on Israeli terrorism-financing offenses and other charges. The Palestinian NGO’s senior accountant, former accountant and former purchasing department manager were expected to be charged with similar offenses in the coming days, according to the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.
Ruiz, 62, had been held by Israeli authorities without charge since her arrest at her home near Bethlehem on April 13. Spanish authorities have provided her with consular assistance and Spain’s deputy consul general has accompanied her during court hearings, the Spanish Foreign Ministry said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
“We will continue following this case closely, insisting and working together with the Israeli authorities,” it said.
The PFLP is a Palestinian Leninist-Marxist militant group that opposes the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. It staged a number of airline hijackings in the 1970s and numerous attacks on Israeli civilians, including the 2001 assassination of then-tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi. It is part of the PLO, the main Palestinian national movement.
The Shin Bet began investigating the PFLP’s finances following an August 2019 attack by the militant group in the West Bank that killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded her brother and father, an Israeli official said.
The investigation found at least seven Palestinian charities had funneled tens of millions of euros donated by European governments and organizations for humanitarian purposes to PFLP coffers.
The Israeli official said the probe found that the NGO, along with other aid organizations, including the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and Addameer, “act under PFLP leadership and in accordance with the organization’s directives, as a cover for promoting the PFLP’s activities and funding.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The Health Works Committees did not respond to requests for comment.
Although the PFLP is one of the smaller Palestinian militant groups operating in the occupied West Bank, its cash pipeline from Europe has “developed considerably in the past decade,” the official said. “European governmental money helped build up this organization.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has called on European governments to step up oversight of donations to Palestinian organizations to ensure they don’t wind up funding groups outlawed by the EU.
The European Union’s diplomatic mission in Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A petition calling on Israel to free Ruiz and the other detainees’ was signed by nearly 6,000 individuals and organizations in Spain, saying the aid group was attacked by Israel “in a policy of repression, weakening and dismantling of civil society organizations of Palestine.”
Israel accuses Spanish woman of aiding banned militant group
https://arab.news/vt374
Israel accuses Spanish woman of aiding banned militant group
- A military court indicted Juana Ruiz Sánchez on Israeli terrorism-financing offenses and other charges
- Israel, US, Canada and European Union regard the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine a terrorist organization
Aid workers find little life in El-Fasher after RSF takeover
- First UN visit to the devastated Sudanese city finds traumatized civilians in ‘unsafe conditions’
PORT SUDAN: Traumatized civilians left in Sudan’s El-Fasher after its capture by paramilitary forces are living without water or sanitation in a city haunted by famine, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said on Monday.
El-Fasher fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October after more than 500 days of siege, and last Friday, a small UN humanitarian team was able to make its first short visit in almost two years.
Mass atrocities, including massacres, torture, and sexual violence, reportedly accompanied the capture of the city. Satellite pictures reviewed by AFP show what appear to be mass graves.
FASTFACT
From a humanitarian point of view, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s ‘epicenter of human suffering’ and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
Brown described the city as a “crime scene,” but said human rights experts would carry out investigations while her office focuses on restoring aid to the survivors.
“We weren’t able to see any of the detainees, and we believe there are detainees,” she said.
From a humanitarian point of view, she said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s “epicenter of human suffering” and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
“El-Fasher is a ghost of its former self,” Brown said in an interview.
“We don’t have enough information yet to conclude how many people remain there, but we know large parts of the city are destroyed. The people who remain, their homes have been destroyed.”
“These people are living in very precarious situations,” warned Brown, a Canadian diplomat and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
“Some of them are in abandoned buildings. Some of them ... in very rudimentary conditions, plastic sheeting, no sanitation, no water. So these are very undignified, unsafe conditions for people.”
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the regular army and its former allies, the RSF, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Brown said the team “negotiated hard with the RSF” to obtain access and managed to look around, visit a hard-pressed hospital, and some abandoned UN premises — but only for a few hours.
Their movements were also limited by fears of unexploded ordnance and mines left behind from nearly two years of fighting.
“There was one small market operating, mostly with produce that comes from surrounding areas, so tomatoes, onions, potatoes,” she said.
“Very small quantities, very small bags, which tells you that people can’t afford to buy more.”
“There is a declared famine in El-Fasher. We’ve been blocked from going in. There’s nothing positive about what’s happened in El-Fasher.
“It was a mission to test whether we could get our people safely in and out, to have a look at what remains of the town, who remains there, what their situation is,” she said.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, driven 11 million from their homes, and caused what the UN has declared “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”
