Lod court orders dissolution of Ra’am-linked charity over alleged terror financing

The Lod District Court orders the dissolution of a nonprofit associated with MK Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party over alleged links to terror financing.

The move comes at the request of the Corporations Authority after a Justice Ministry investigation found reason to believe that the Association for Humanitarian Actions had “transferred funds or cooperated with organizations outside of Israel that were declared as terrorist organizations.”

The court says that it ordered the dissolution of the charity due to “serious and ongoing” issues, including the promotion of “foreign goals and activities in enemy states,” and “joint activity with a declared terrorist organization.”

Both Ra’am and the Association for Humanitarian Actions are affiliated with the southern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, although the party itself has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.

The government announced the pending dissolution of both the Association for Humanitarian Actions and the Islamic Association for Orphans and the Needy, also known as “Aid 48,” in 2024.

Ra’am does not immediately respond to today’s court ruling, which comes only a day after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the inclusion of the Islamist party in former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s government was far worse than the governmental failures tied to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Smotrich welcomes today’s court decision as vindication of his criticism of Ra’am, stating that it “proves what I have said from day one: the Ra’am party is involved up to its neck in ties with associations and elements that support terrorism.”

Neither Abbas nor his spokesman immediately respond to The Times of Israel’s requests for comment.