An Investigation Reveals How UK-Registered Charities And The Gift Aid System Have Channelled Millions Into Illegal Israeli Settlements, While The Government Condemns The Very Activities It Subsidises.

LONDON – For at least a decade, a quiet financial pipeline has connected British bank accounts to the hilltops of the occupied West Bank. Through a network of registered charities, donors in England and Wales have funnelled tens of millions of pounds into institutions that sustain, expand, and defend Israeli settlements, colonies that are illegal under international law and which successive UK governments have described as a “flagrant violation” of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Now, that pipeline is under unprecedented scrutiny, as MPs, activists, and an undercover investigation force the Charity Commission and the Foreign Office to confront what critics call a systemic failure of regulation and political will.

This week, Labour MP Melanie Ward dropped a bombshell in Westminster: 32 charities registered in England and Wales have donated at least £28 million to Israeli settlement-linked entities in the occupied West Bank. If Gift Aid, the UK tax subsidy that boosts charitable donations by 25%, was claimed on these contributions in the usual way, the British taxpayer has effectively subsidised illegal settlements to the tune of £5.6 million. Ward, who before entering parliament served as the chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, described the situation as “deplorable”.

“The existence and growth of Israeli settlements in the state of Palestine is globally recognised as one of the major impediments to peace,” Ward wrote in a blistering letter to the Charity Commission, seen by QNN. “Any activity which supports the maintenance and the expansion of Israeli settlements, such as that funded by these 32 ‘charities’, is extremist and not of benefit to the UK public. Further, it risks being materially and financially used in pursuance of breaches of international law.”

Her intervention came as Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Tuesday that the Charity Commission has been formally tasked with investigating UK charities’ links to settlements. A Commission spokesperson said it was carefully considering the “serious matters” Ward had raised. “As we have previously confirmed, we are actively considering the wider legal and compliance issues relating to charities operating in Palestine,” the spokesperson added. “We know this is a complex and highly contentious issue, and so it is right that we take the time needed to consider these matters fully.”

But for the communities living in the shadow of those settlements, time is a luxury they do not have.

A School On Stolen Land:

Among the charities named in Ward’s letter are the Kasner Charitable Trust (KCT) and UK Toremet, an organisation that acts as a fiscal conduit, receiving donations on behalf of vetted “recipient agencies” in Israel and the occupied territories. UK Toremet’s website has long boasted that it makes it “easier to gift money to charities outside the UK by facilitating a UK tax receipt and Gift Aid qualification.”

The Guardian revealed last year that KCT and UK Toremet had together donated approximately £5.7 million to the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva high school in Susya, a settlement deep in the South Hebron Hills. Ward’s researchers, who examined documents in English and Hebrew, found that Kasner had also donated to another yeshiva in the heart of Hebron, a Palestinian city where several hundred settlers live under heavy military protection in enclaves that have necessitated the closure of shops, roads, and entire neighbourhoods.

In 2022, UK Toremet wired £38,479 to Regavim, an extremist pro-settler organisation that campaigns for the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure. The European Union placed sanctions on Regavim for its role in settler violence and dispossession. Through the Jgive platform, for which UK Toremet processes British-currency donations, individuals can still donate to Regavim and to Shivat Zion Lerigvy Admata, a group the UK government itself sanctioned on Tuesday for “enabling and financing settler violence.”

The involvement of UK Toremet is not a new concern. As far back as September 2015, investigations by this journalist revealed that UK Toremet’s approved list of recipient agencies included the Gush Etzion Foundation, which supports settlements south of Jerusalem; a foundation established “for the benefit of the residents of Efrat”; and a religious school in Hebron. At the time, an Early Day Motion tabled by SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, and eventually signed by 39 cross-party MPs, “expressed serious concerns” about UK charities funding construction at Neve Daniel, another settlement west of Bethlehem. The school in question, Makor Chaim, boasted that its new campus “will serve as the beachhead for a whole new expansion, tripling the size of Neve Daniel,” and directed UK donors seeking Gift Aid to route their money through UK Toremet.

“Awesome” Settlements And An Undercover Lens:

The theoretical concerns of 2015 have been made viscerally concrete by an undercover investigation published last week by Declassified UK, whose findings have sent fresh tremors through Westminster.

Posing as a prospective donor, a Declassified reporter approached Shivat Zion, an Israeli charity that encourages Jewish emigration to Israel and the settlements. At an “Aliyah Fair” held in London last year and organised by the World Zionist Organisation, and due to return to the capital next month, the group’s “encouragement” officer was filmed discussing the practicalities of moving British citizens to Efrat, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

“You’re next to the Arabs; you’ll hear their mosques,” the officer said. “But apart from this, it’s a great living standard.”

The pitch was unambiguous: Shivat Zion would support Britons wishing to settle on occupied land. And, crucially, the charity told supporters they could claim UK Gift Aid on their donations by routing them through UK Toremet. An email from a Shivat Zion representative, seen by Declassified, stated that donations “go through” UK Toremet to “ensure the donations properly reach Shivat Zion.” The implication was clear: the British taxpayer could, through the tax system, subsidise the movement of UK nationals into settlements considered illegal under the very laws the UK is bound to uphold.

When Declassified put these findings to UK Toremet, the charity denied any current relationship. It claimed it had not given any grants to Shivat Zion in the last 12 months and had no “active” relationship. But for donors on the ground, the marketing was clear: give through UK Toremet, get Gift Aid, and your money will reach those encouraging settlement in the West Bank. Whether or not the transactions continued, the architecture of subsidisation was laid bare.

Daniel Machover, a leading human rights lawyer and co-founder of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, told Declassified he was “deeply disturbed” by the findings. “It is inexcusable to claim that these donations were eligible for UK Gift Aid,” he said.

The Political Fallout:

In Parliament, independent MP Shockat Adam pressed Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on the revelations. “Declassified UK has found that Israeli charity Shivat Zion is helping British citizens to move to illegal settlements,” Adam said. “That breaks international law, and, to rub salt in the wound, British taxpayers are implicated, as the charity claims UK gift aid. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that she will look into the matter urgently and sanction any organisation, charity or otherwise, complicit in Israeli illegal land grabs?”

Cooper did not answer directly. “No one should be building illegal settlements in the West Bank,” she replied. “We would expect any organisation in the UK, and people living in the UK, to abide by international law.”

Adam later told Declassified he was “deeply disappointed but not surprised” by the non-committal reply. “We hear repeatedly that the government is doing everything it can, yet now is the time to stop talking and start taking action,” he said. “The government should immediately sanction Shivat Zion and take steps to ensure this cannot happen again.”

Dr Zena Agha, interim director of the British Palestinian Committee, was even more scathing. “Not only did Yvette Cooper side-step the specifics of the case in question entirely, she further illustrated the hollowness of international law,” Agha said. “Her government has been directly responsible for the erosion of the international legal system through its relentless support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

Labour MPs joined the chorus. Grahame Morris, MP for Easington, said: “I am appalled that UK taxpayers may have been funding an organisation that helps people move to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The government must act swiftly to investigate and shut down any organisations facilitating breaches of international law.” His colleague Jon Trickett was blunter: “It’s astonishing if they are enticing settlers when receiving UK Gift Aid. These settlements are illegal and are part of a process of ethnic cleansing. That is not a charitable endeavour; it is a crime.”

The deputy leader of the Green Party, Mothin Ali, called Shivat Zion’s activities “disgraceful” and said the police should “urgently investigate whether there are potential criminal liabilities.”

Jewish Antizionist Action, which protested outside last year’s Aliyah Fair, said it was “disgusted” that Shivat Zion had been invited back this year. “With knowledge of these activities, which violate international law and propagandise to British Jews, we oppose the World Zionist Organisation’s Aliyah Day,” a spokesperson said. “We call on the British government to take urgent action to ban Shivat Zion and any other organisation that is aiding and abetting war crimes against British citizens.”

A History Of Inaction:

The Charity Commission’s present-day assurances are undercut by its own record. The regulator has undertaken three separate compliance cases involving UK Toremet since 2016. It issued the charity’s trustees with “statutory guidance and an action plan,” warning them that they must comply with the Geneva Conventions Act 1957. It “communicated to the trustees the government’s position that construction of settlements in Palestine is illegal under international law.” And yet, more than a decade after the initial red flags, UK Toremet remains on the charity register, its Gift Aid status intact, its recipient list still a subject of parliamentary scrutiny.

Back in October 2015, in response to a question in the House of Lords, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office said the Charity Commission had written to UK Toremet’s trustees and would be “meeting them to review the governance, policies, procedures and operational activity of the charity.” Over a decade later, the review process appears glacial.

The Settlements Surge And Khan Al-Ahmar:

The scandal over charitable funding unfolds against a backdrop of unprecedented settlement expansion and settler violence. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, over 1,152 Palestinians, including 239 children, have been killed in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that between that date and April 22, 2026, at least 1,081 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with more than 35 killed since the beginning of this year alone.

Settlement construction has surged to record levels. In 2025, nearly 47,390 housing units were advanced, approved, or tendered, a sharp increase from around 26,170 in 2024. Last month, the Israeli cabinet adopted a package of measures that makes it easier for settlers to purchase land and gives Israeli officials expanded powers to enforce laws on Palestinians in the occupied territory, a move that critics say deepens de facto annexation.

One emblematic flashpoint is Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village in the strategic E1 corridor east of Jerusalem. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently announced an order to demolish the village entirely in response to reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had sought an arrest warrant against him for incitement against Palestinians. Forcible displacement of a protected population is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

“Khan al-Ahmar has been embroiled in a gruelling struggle against erasure, displacement and state-backed settler violence as part of Israel’s E1 plan,” wrote 140 Labour MPs in a letter to Foreign Secretary Cooper on Sunday. The E1 plan, if completed, would physically bisect the West Bank, making a contiguous Palestinian state an impossibility, a two-state solution rendered “an impossibility,” as the MPs bluntly stated. The letter was initiated by Melanie Ward and signed by a roster of senior Labour figures, including Wes Streeting, the former Health Secretary, who resigned his cabinet post last month, citing a loss of confidence in Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Streeting, who has previously accused Israel of committing war crimes and described it as a “rogue state,” is now widely expected to challenge Starmer for the party leadership.

“Settlement expansion is illegal, it is an injustice inflicted on the Palestinians, it undermines two states and doesn’t make Israel any safer,” Streeting posted on X alongside the letter.

The MPs demanded urgent action, including a ban on all trade with Israeli settlements, following the lead of other European nations. “The case for ending trade with settlements is clear,” the letter argued. “The international court of justice has directed third states not to enter into ‘trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory’, which is widely interpreted as meaning states must not trade with settlements.”

This week, Britain joined Canada, France, Norway, New Zealand and Australia in announcing a new round of sanctions targeting Israeli settler networks. The measures include a non-binding recommendation to restrict trade with settlements, but for the MPs who wrote to Cooper, this is insufficient. “While we welcome sanctions that have already been placed, including those on Smotrich and fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, it is abundantly clear that those sanctions are not enough,” they wrote. The government had pledged earlier this year to “counter settlement expansion and to challenge policies and threats of forcible displacements and annexation,” but in the months since, “the situation has worsened considerably, and the government has taken no further action. This is unacceptable.”

Voices From The Ground:

In Khan al-Ahmar, residents watch the legal and political battles with a mixture of weary hope and acute fear. Eid Abu Khamis, a community leader and longtime spokesperson for the village, told QNN by phone that the sense of abandonment is palpable. “We hear these statements from London, these sanctions, these letters, but on the ground, we see the bulldozers preparing. We see the soldiers guarding the settlers who attack our children. The money flowing from British charities is not just numbers on a page, it builds the yeshivas, it funds the groups that lobby to demolish our homes. And we ask: if the UK knows this is illegal, why does it allow its tax system to pay for it?”

Palestinian officials have long warned of the corrosive effect of such funding. Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, has repeatedly raised the issue with British officials. In a statement following Ward’s disclosure, the Palestinian Mission said the Charity Commission’s failure to act “sends a clear message of impunity” and called for an immediate freeze on the assets of implicated charities. “If your own government admits these settlements are a war crime, then facilitating donations to them through tax breaks is complicity,” a spokesperson said.

The Slow Wheels Of Justice:

The international legal consensus leaves little ambiguity. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of Israeli Policies and Practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. The court found that Israel’s settlements are unlawful and that third states are under an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The ruling was widely interpreted as requiring states to cease trade and financial flows that sustain settlements. The ICC’s prosecutor continues to investigate settlement construction as a war crime.

Against this backdrop, the continued operation of charities funnelling millions, with taxpayer support, into West Bank settlements appears not merely a legal anomaly but a direct contravention of the UK’s stated policy and international obligations.

“We are in a bizarre situation where the Foreign Office condemns settlements, sanctions some settler leaders, and urges everyone to respect international law, while HM Revenue and Customs effectively subsidises the very same enterprise through Gift Aid,” said human rights lawyer Daniel Machover. “This is a glaring loophole, and the Charity Commission has all the powers it needs to close it. It simply hasn’t.”

As the Charity Commission once again opens a review, the question hanging over Westminster is whether this latest flurry of scrutiny will finally sever the pipeline, or whether, like the Khan al-Ahmar families waiting for the next demolition order, the response will once again be words without action. For Palestinian communities watching the hills fill with new red-roofed houses, the difference is measured in land, life, and the slow extinguishing of a viable future.

Source: Veritas Press C.I.C. | Multi News Agencies