Four months after its logo was revealed to have appeared inside a Hamas terror tunnel on a scooter, the French government announced the freezing of assets of Humani’Terre, a France-based organization designated by the US as a proxy operating on behalf of Hamas.
In February, the Jerusalem Post published an article highlighting a screenshot from N12 footage taken inside a Hamas tunnel in Gaza, which revealed a scooter carrying the logo of the French NGO Humani’Terre. This organization was recognized by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as an alias of a group named the Committee of Charity and Solidarity with Palestine (CBSP), a French organization designated as a terror group acting and fundraising on behalf of Hamas – by Israel in 1997 and by the US in 2003.
Hamas ties
According to official filings, Humani’Terre received around 30,000 Euros in public funding during 2022. The scooter carrying Humani’Terre’s logo inside a Hamas-run tunnel was then believed to suggest that Hamas officials were using this equipment, allegedly aimed for the poor in Gaza, to facilitate movement in tunnels built as command centers, weapon warehouses, and areas designated for holding Israeli hostages.
Now it has been revealed that the French government issued a decision last week to freeze the assets of the NGO and some of its officials. Though a relation to Hamas was not mentioned in the decision itself, it is probable that ties to the terror group, both the old designations and the newer connections, could have had an impact.
Vincent Chebat, senior researcher at NGO Monitor, a research institute devoted to exposing Western public funding for terror-related NGOs, lauded the decision, adding: “The French government's decision to sanction Humani'Terre is a welcome move, although it should have happened over twenty years ago. The huge time gap between the Israeli and the US designations, and France's decision, highlights once again the imperative need for a more efficient security-related cooperation between European governments and Israel in the fight against terrorism and terror financing.”