Since 2016, a mystery has surrounded World Vision’s former Gaza director Mohammed el-Halabi.
Halabi was released back to Hamas-ruled Gaza in February 2025 as part of a hostage-prisoner deal, but in an extensive interview with The Jerusalem Post earlier in 2026 and in communications this week, he still denied having any connection with Hamas.
This is despite his having been convicted of multiple terrorism financing charges by an Israeli court in 2022 and despite his early release brokered by the group in which over 900 Palestinian prisoners were released for dozens of Israeli hostages.
Over 2,000 more Palestinian prisoners would only be released around eight months later with the final Gaza ceasefire and hostage-prisoner deal.
During the interview, Halabi disclosed several other items to the Post that clarify or add to the mystery surrounding his case.
These include the fullest, most balanced, and most nuanced account to date of what led to his confession; that he purposely gave Israeli authorities an inflated number regarding the terrorism financing charges in order to set up the Israeli case to be sabotaged; that Hamas called his wife at one point as part of its probe about whether he had stolen from it; his explanation as to why Hamas invested so many resources in tracking his Israeli trial; and delving deeper into controversies about why some of his defense case witnesses might not have come from Gaza to appear in his Beersheba District Court trial.
Halabi, who was first arrested in 2016, said in a phone interview that he was speaking from a tent in northern Gaza, where he had been trying to rebuild his life and reenter the humanitarian field since his release.
He confirmed to the Post in late May that he was still attempting to rejoin the field, claiming that hundreds of people have contacted him for help, believing he must still be involved with some international organizations.
“This is painful to me because I can’t help. I hope I will take a position in the near future to help the people and children, and contribute to setting up the culture of peace in the community, and erase the culture of violence,” he wrote.
In the 2022 verdict, the court said that Halabi intentionally diverted large volumes of iron, plastic, and digging tools to Hamas to assist it with digging terror tunnels, and that in 2012 Halabi twice visited terror tunnels, in one case providing a Hamas operative with $20,000 to repair tunnels.
According to the court ruling, Halabi was recruited by Abu Cuchba of Hamas in 2004 and initially worked as a soldier for the terrorist group alongside his brother Diya before joining World Vision in 2005.
Halabi denied that he or his brother were ever members of the terrorist organization, though he acknowledged that his brother had agreed with Hamas’s mandate while at school during what he described as a particularly religious phase. “He has changed,” Halabi promised the Post in a phone interview.
World Vision Australia has repeatedly rejected claims that Halabi supported Hamas, saying it found no evidence that he diverted humanitarian resources. In 2017, following an externally conducted forensic investigation, the organization said there was no evidence that Halabi had worked for Hamas or misappropriated funds.
At the time, however, NGO Monitor reviewed the group’s financial records and concluded that the charity’s Israel-registered nonprofit branch’s records contained internal inconsistencies and included information on payments to Hamas operatives.
Describing his career path, Halabi said, “I started from the university. When I started university, I was a member of the International European Movement. I was responsible for receiving the delegations in Gaza, because we had, at that time, to explain [to] the people [about the situation there]…. Because I was an activist, I received the delegation to Gaza, and I guided them through Gaza. I later also lived in Europe… I was active in this movement (International European Movement). Then, when I joined World Vision, it was even before Hamas took control over Gaza.”
Until 2000, Halabi said, he visited Israel weekly because the World Vision office was based in Jerusalem, “and I have never made any violation in Israel or Gaza,” he told the Post.
“I challenged them during interrogation [whether] they can present to me any document [to] prove that I have a link… or prove that I have provided them [Hamas] or any political party… with any kind of assistance,” or that he had committed any violation, and he said the interrogators could not.
Explanation as to why Hamas invested so many resources in tracking his Israeli trial
Halabi initially contacted the Post after NGO Monitor published documents that the IDF collected in Gaza during the recent two-year war.
The materials appeared to show that Hamas attempted to disrupt Halabi’s trial and that it investigated World Vision Australia staff to determine who was testifying as a witness in the case.
While the IDF confirmed at the time that the documents were found in Gaza, it could not authenticate the information the papers contained.
Although the documents suggested that Hamas interrogated potential witnesses who spoke out against Halabi, he denied that there was any evidence against him. He claimed that a key witness who testified against him had three separate criminal convictions, including for giving false testimony. Mohammed Mehdi was a former World Vision accountant who alleged that Halabi used organizational funds to assist Hamas.
Halabi initially said his lawyer could provide documentation supporting his claims, a point also raised by his legal representative, Maher Hanna. However, Hanna later informed the Post that the documents that could substantiate Halabi’s account were classified by the state.
Most nuanced account to date of what led to his confession
To date, the conviction of Halabi had noted that he had confessed to aspects of the alleged crimes, while he had said that he was coerced into the confession. In some cases, he has accused the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and his interrogators of some form of torture.
However, in his interview with the Post, he stated that he made his confession to an undercover “prisoner” collaborator while in prison.
From the Israeli perspective, getting a confession from a defendant who does not want to admit his crimes directly to authorities, via an undercover “prisoner,” is a classic and legal move.
From Halabi’s perspective, he told the Post that he had been told about such undercover “prisoners” before his arrest, including that they could use deadly violence if someone did not cooperate.
He told the Post that the collaborator-agent made him feel threatened with psychological warfare, though he did not mention any physical beating.
“They were collaborators. They told me: ‘We knew from Hamas in Gaza that you took actions for them,’” said Halabi.
He added, “I felt my life threatened by them. Before my detention, I heard” about such collaborators, so “I just said to them ‘yes, yes’ to everything they accused me of.”
He purposely gave Israeli authorities an inflated terrorism financing charges number to sabotage the case against him
Regarding some of the budget issues, he said he purposely “gave them [Israeli officials] wrong information to prove” later that he was innocent. “We can prove that they are wrong easily.”
He said he felt the smart strategy for avoiding being harmed by them was “to confess to one or two charges,” while rejecting other more serious charges.
In fact, the Beersheba District Court that convicted him did so on the basis of a much smaller amount of terrorism financing than the original $52 million charged.
Likewise, Halabi has pointed out that the full official budget of World Vision during the relevant time period was close to $20m., potentially exposing the original amounts in the indictment as inflated.
The Israeli court found that even if there were discrepancies between the larger terrorism financing charges and the amounts for which there was evidence to convict, a conviction for any terrorism financing amount was enough for a guilty verdict and jail time.
Israeli prosecution sources have also told the Post that some supplies, which Halabi was convicted of providing to Hamas, are harder to trace than cash, though they have significant value.
NGO Monitor also asserted to the Post that Halabi’s account of events did not give a “plausible explanation” and was “entirely inconsistent with the evidence” against him.
It is also possible that multiple strange narratives are true: that Halabi was involved in terrorism financing, but that when he confessed, he lied to inflate his terrorism financing contribution so as to try to undermine the prosecution’s case later, with the prosecution being sloppy and seeking to convict on some of those amounts without sufficient declassified evidence that could be presented in a standard trial court.
Delving deeper into why some defense witnesses did not come from Gaza to the Israel trial
Halabi alleged that it was Israel, not Hamas, that disrupted his trial by threatening to arrest anyone who traveled to testify on his behalf. At the time, Jerusalem warned that individuals complicit in aiding Hamas would face prosecution if they entered Israeli territory to testify.
“I checked the documents, and unfortunately, they are all classified as secret by the state, and there is an order not to share them or even share their content. I want to emphasize, however, that the state notified the court that it reserved the right to investigate and charge any defense witnesses that came from Gaza,” Hanna wrote to the Post. “In all cases, it must be clarified that the prosecution claimed that it could not influence the security forces, and it was the sole discretion of COGAT [the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories] whether or not to allow entry.”
Hanna said COGAT was approached multiple times with requests to allow witnesses who could bolster Halabi’s defense to enter from Gaza, and that each request was denied.
“It turned out that one of the witnesses had entered Israel on numerous occasions after Halabi’s arrest without even being investigated, but when we requested her to testify as Halabi’s witness, she was suddenly rejected. Of course, she couldn’t receive any entry permit, and therefore she was not arrested,” Hanna claimed.
Halabi’s and Hanna’s accounts conflict with the documents released by NGO Monitor, which suggest Hamas prevented potential whistleblowers from accessing Israel through the Beit Hanun crossing in an effort to disrupt the investigation.
“Hamas viewed Halabi’s arrest and trial as a major problem and security threat, reflected in the emphasis placed on his communication with members of Hamas’s military wing… it was Hamas that obstructed the movement of potential witnesses seeking to enter Israel,” NGO Monitor wrote to the Post.
Yet another possibility is a more complex dynamic: that Halabi is telling the truth that Israel would not promise immunity to Hamas-linked potential witnesses, but that it was ready to allow non-Hamas-linked witnesses to come to the trial to testify.
In other words, Halabi’s witnesses may have asked for a carte blanche free pass into Israel to come to his trial to testify, and Israeli prosecutors may have given them conditional permission.
In this scenario, Halabi could claim that Israel blocked his witnesses from testifying, while Israel could claim it was willing to open its doors, but not to give a freebie travel pass into Israel to someone whom it knew was a terrorist.
Reading between the lines, this seems to be what Halabi means when he said that there were legal attempts before the Supreme Court to protect his witnesses, but that eventually the Israeli prosecution would not give the witnesses guaranteed free passage within Israel without being jailed.
Hamas called his wife to probe whether he stole from them
In the interview with the Post, Halabi revealed that Hamas “thought that I have stolen the $50m. and put them in my pocket. So they have investigated the staff, and even they have called my wife and they asked for a bank statement for her bank account… which exists in my house.”
Addressing comments he has made to the Sydney Morning Herald, in which he said Hamas had investigated him on suspicion that he embezzled funds from the group, Halabi said the inquiry stemmed from Israel’s allegations. He claimed Hamas was searching for resources Israel alleged he had taken for it, suspecting he had stolen from the group, but that
Hamas dropped the accusation after reviewing his and his wife’s personal accounts.
Basically, Halabi said that Hamas was swept up in “Israeli propaganda” and the large funding numbers Israel accused him of laundering.
Further, Halabi essentially said that though he never worked for Hamas, the group had sought his expertise as a sort of middleman for understanding the other NGOs operating in Gaza, including making complaints to him about other NGOs.
Halabi appeared to be making this claim to show that Hamas would not threaten him or use him directly, because he and they had worked out relations in which he assisted them as an outsider to liaise with some of the NGOs against which the terrorist group had complaints.
In addition, Halabi said, “There were emails on my laptop which I wanted the Shin Bet to see, which they ignored… my lawyer presented the emails.” In these emails, he said, various organizations, including Hamas, applied to World Vision to receive funds.
According to Halabi, he “raised this with my national director, and we have not supported them, and I said not to deal with them, to rule them out.”
With this claim, Halabi seemed to be implying that if the emails show that he blocked funds for Hamas, then he would of course never be intimidated into cooperating with it.
The Post has no way to evaluate these claims, given that Halabi said Israel will not produce the emails. The prosecution has said it is not familiar with the existence of the claimed emails.
Halabi was asked why Hamas, which sat at negotiation tables for months discussing, among other matters, the names of prisoners to be released, would agree to his return to Gaza if it suspected he had stolen from the group. He said his name was among hundreds and could have been easily overlooked. Further, he said he did not believe Hamas arranged specifically for his release.
While maintaining that he was not afraid of Hamas, Halabi acknowledged that he feared being caught in ceasefire violations.
“We cannot know if we will be injured or die; they will try to target someone” nearby, he said.
Hamas has prohibited Gazans from contacting Israelis, charging those who do so with the crime of treason and normalization with the Jewish state.
Despite this, Halabi’s father, Khalil, has written repeatedly for Israeli media outlets, and neither he nor his son expressed hesitation about speaking with the Post.
Asked why he would take the risk, Halabi responded, “Why should I have to be afraid of Hamas? At this time, there is no Hamas.”
Despite that claim, Israeli military assessments have found that the terrorist group has been rebuilding many aspects of its military wing.
Halabi believed that clearing his name was the first step in returning to the humanitarian field and a normal life. At the time of the interview, he claimed that his bank account was closed; he can no longer travel; and it has been hard for him to find employment, even if employers believe he is innocent.
Whether innocent as he claims, or guilty as found by an Israeli court after a six-year trial, following his release in 2025, Halabi continues to try to rehabilitate his name to find his place in the new postwar era.
