An Israeli district court sentenced World Vision’s Mohammed El Halabi to twelve years in prison in what is widely being condemned as a “miscarriage of justice.”
In the years I’ve been covering Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it’s an issue that arises time and time again. Palestinians are criminalized and imprisoned, and their lives destroyed all because of a weapon that Israel can yield, without any question or consequence: secret evidence.
Hisham Abu Hawash’s hunger strike will go down in the history of Palestinian resistance as one of the longest and, arguably, most consequential.
Mohammed el-Halabi is accused of diverting World Vision aid money in Gaza to Hamas, yet as his trial closes no evidence has emerged that any funds ever went missing. In his first interview since his arrest in 2016, el-Halabi tells Mondoweiss, “the claims that the Israeli prosecutor has issued against me are fabricated and aimed at stopping the humanitarian work I and others are doing for the people of Gaza.”
Whenever I conduct an interview with a Palestinian prisoner or their family, I am told, repeatedly, that “no one cares. But is this really the case?