An exposé by HaKol HaYehudi shows tight relations and strong collaboration between Ra’am, an Islamist party in Israel, and a Hamas-affiliated organization in Turkey, promoting violent and inciteful rhetoric.
The origins of HaKol HaYehudi’s exposé go back to an indictment filed earlier this month against Rami Habiballah from the village of Ein Mahel in northern Israel, which accused him of aiding Hamas during the war. According to the indictment letter, Habiballah traveled to Turkey in 2022 as part of a humanitarian delegation, where he met with Ibrahim Al-Naji and Abd Al-Jaber Shalabi, both recognized in the indictment letter as Hamas activists from Syria and Turkey.
Later on, Habiballah is described as sending his acquaintances from Hamas in Turkey photographs and GPS locations of a plant belonging to Israeli defense industry, urging them to strike the plant with missiles.
The letter also describes how Habiballah’s contacts passed the information on to relevant sources in Hamas and urged him to commit a terror attack on his own. Habiballah then planned to carry out a shooting attack in Jerusalem, also turning to two other contacts from his vicinity who accepted to join him and supply weapons, but they were arrested before they carried out the attack.
Finally, the letter also accuses Habiballah of gathering funds from his village and funneling over $8,500 in an admitted attempt to “cause harm to national security.” These funds were transferred to the Khayr Ommah Foundation (also spelled “Khyar Ommah” or “Ummet Hayr”), recognized in the letter by the plaintiff, the State of Israel, as “belonging to Hamas.”
Khayr Ommah is a foundation headquartered in Istanbul. According to their official website, the foundation runs humanitarian campaigns, including the distribution of food to the needy in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.
Their website lists Qatar Charity and the IHH, a Turkish organization banned in Israel and known in Israel mainly for organizing the violent Mavi Marmara flotilla.
According to HaKol HaYehudi, aforementioned Ibrahim Al-Naji and Abd Al-Jaber Shalabi, who are deemed Hamas affiliates by Israel according to the indictment letter, are also activists in Khayr Ommah themselves.
Annual summer camp for kids hosts preacher advocating for jihad
A pinnacle event held by Khayr Ommah is a yearly summer camp dedicated to Jerusalem, which hosts around 1,500 elementary school Palestinians from Lebanon, Syria, and beyond. In one clip from the 2018 summer camp, a preacher is seen on a stage telling the children to go to Jerusalem with “flags of Islam and rifles, since the enemy does not understand the language of roses, but only that of rifles.” He also added: “The future is the tunnels of Gaza… Jihad is our path, and death in the path of Allah is our desire!”As the preacher delivered his speech a logo beside him identified an organization named Ighatha 48 or The Islamic Association for Relief for Orphans and the Needy. This organization belongs to the Islamic Movement in Israel and its political arm, Ra’am. Ighatha 48 served as the sponsor of the summer camp, and Nusaybah and Na’el Issa, prominent figures of the Islamic Movement, can be seen in the same video as hosts and key speakers at the event.Ighatha 48 made headlines in Israel a couple of years ago following other exposés tying the humanitarian organization to other Hamas-affiliated groups and outlets.Ra’am, short for the United Arab Party, is the political arm of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, an ideological tributary of the Muslim Brotherhood, which, as opposed to the Northern Branch, outlawed in 2015, is considered a legal and legitimate organization. It became known worldwide in 2021, when it agreed to support the Bennett-Lapid government, the first time an Islamist party joined an Israeli government.Ra’am had promoted fund-raising for the Khayr Ommah Foundation at least three times in the past, and its leaders have close ties with figures at Khayr Ommah. According to HaKol HaYehudi, when asked about these relations, Ra’am said that Ighatha 48 only deals with humanitarian affairs, that they weren’t aware of relations between Khayr Ommah and Hamas, and that the organization is not designated under Israeli law as a terror group belonging to Hamas.Elchanan Gruner, an investigative journalist with HaKol HaYehudi, added: “The chances that Ra’am was not aware of who Khayr Ommah are – are slim. They collaborate with them, sponsor events with them and for them. They know who the personnel are and what their agendas are.“All of these examples show in the clearest of ways that Ighatha 48 and Ra’am officials have been working for years with Hamas-affiliated activists and a Hamas-affiliated association, with the goal of producing generations with a radical, nationalist consciousness, calling on them to go to Al-Aqsa with guns. This may even explain the development of entities such as Hamas in Lebanon or Hamas in Syria. We hope that the Israeli authorities will wake up and open an in-depth impartial investigation.”The Jerusalem Post reached out to Ra’am and Ighatha 48 for comment, but the two were not readily available.