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Oxfam stops funding Palestinian NGO three years after being warned about alleged terror links

The charity giant has given the Ramallah-based Union of Agricultural Work Committees over two million euros since 2017

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Edinburgh, UK - A pedestrian passing an Oxfam charity shop, which raises money for the organisation's international charitable work.

Oxfam has finally stopped handing over millions of euros to a Palestinian NGO - three years after being warned about the Ramallah-based organisation’s alleged terror links.

A Dutch government investigation, which began in May 2020 and concluded in January, found that there were “individual links” between the UAWC and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a well-known terrorist group.

Ofxam's last payment to UAWC for over 300,000 euros was in November 2021 - but advocacy group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) told the JC they had been warning Oxfam about the NGO since 2019.

The UAWC, which was designated as terrorist group by the Israeli government in October, has received over two million euros from Oxfam since 2017.

The Israeli Ministry of Defence has said the UAWC was controlled by senior leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Investigators from Proximities Risk Consultancy, which was commissioned by the Dutch government to probe UAWC, said the terrorist connections involved 34 people between 2007 and 2020.

Twenty eight UAWC board members reportedly had PFLP links, and for a period, 12 of those reportedly had leading positions in the UAWC and the PFLP simultaneously.

No financial flows between the UAWC and the PFLP or any proof of organisational unity between the two groups was found in the Dutch government report, however.

Last December the EU instructed Oxfam to cut funding to the UAWC pending its own investigation into the NGO’s alleged terror links.

In a statement, Oxfam GB said: “Oxfam is aware of the Dutch position. Oxfam does not currently fund UAWC.”

According to the charity’s website, UAWC was formed to “improve the performance and professionalism of Palestinian farmers during the Israel-Palestinian conflict”.

In 2019 UKLFI wrote to Oxfam to inform them that “many past and present” UAWC employees had links to the PFLP.

Caroline Turner, director of UKLFI, said: “It is untenable for Oxfam to continue to fund the UAWC given the information that has now emerged from the Dutch investigation and the Israeli designation of the group.”

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