EXCLUSIVE — A Gaza fundraiser benefiting an Israeli-designated terrorist group can no longer accept credit card donations following multiple Washington Examiner reports, records show.
Credit card processor Stripe came under fire Monday from Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), for allowing its services to be used by the Spanish Bizilur Association for Cooperation and Development of Peoples for its “#StopGazaStarvation Gaza Relief Campaign” with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which Israel identified in 2021 as an “arm” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist faction. However, following legal experts warning that Stripe could be providing “material support” to the PFLP, the financial services company has quietly jumped ship from the fundraiser.
GOP LAWMAKERS CALL ON STRIPE TO CUT TIES WITH TERRORIST-TIED FUNDRAISER: ‘HELPING HAMAS’
The development, which has not been reported, underscores how payment processors are facing heightened pressure not to associate, even indirectly, with Hamas or other terrorist factions. The Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 has since killed more than 1,200 people in the Jewish state, according to Israeli officials.
In late November, PayPal quietly closed an account for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees fundraiser upon Zachor Legal Institute sending PayPal and Stripe letters that said the pro-Israel watchdog would be in touch with the IRS and Treasury Department over their connections to the terrorist-tied initiative.
A Spanish company called Laboral Kutxa also still appears to be allowing Bizilur to accept wire transfers through a bank account for the fundraiser, records show.
The Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which is leading the Gaza fundraising campaign, was identified as the PFLP’s “agricultural” arm in a 1993 report prepared by Middle East expert Glenn Robinson for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express reportedly prohibited the UAWC in 2018 from using their services, one year before its staffers, Samer Arbid and Abdul Razeq Farraj, were charged in 2019 for their involvement in a PFLP terrorist cell in the West Bank and in a roadside bombing that left Israeli teenager Rina Shnerb dead.
Bashir al Khairi, ex-political bureau leader for the PFLP, used to be president of the UAWC’s board of trustees. The PFLP was one of the Palestinian terrorist factions that participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
“As we, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, spearhead this international campaign, we are joined by a coalition of partners and allies worldwide,” the Gaza fundraiser’s website states. “Their engagement in this campaign amplifies our call, aiming to turn the tide of suffering into a wave of support. The use of starvation by the Israeli occupation as a weapon in its deplorable warfare against 2.3 million Palestinians is an affront to humanity, demanding global action to expose and hold accountable those responsible.”
On Monday, members of Congress called on Stripe to cut ties with the fundraiser, which is being eyed by pro-Israel investigators on the Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, and Ways and Means Committees, the Washington Examiner reported.
“I’m extremely concerned by the degree in which terrorist activities are being funded under our nose,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) said. “I not only condemn it, but I think we have to look at solutions to combat it aggressively.”
Murphy sits on the Ways and Means Committee, which held a hearing in November on foreign terrorist financing through U.S. charities. Before the hearing, Zachor Legal Institute sent the committee a memo claiming terrorist factions, including Hamas, are “exploiting” loopholes to gain access to funds in the United States.
The website for the UAWC’s fundraiser accuses Israel of “genocide” and an “ethnic cleansing campaign in West Bank.” In recent years, the UAWC has pocketed millions of dollars in grants from the European Union and United Nations, as well as Norway, France, Italy, and other countries, according to funding records compiled by the Israeli NGO Monitor watchdog group.
On Oct. 11, four days after the Hamas-led attack, the UAWC released a statement lamenting the deaths of “martyrs” in Gaza working on behalf of Hamas, the Washington Examiner reported. The UAWC “was established by the PFLP,” which controls it, and “makes its assets available” to the faction, according to a 2012 report by the Israel Law Center watchdog group.
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The Dutch government determined in 2022 it would no longer allow the UAWC to receive grants over “ties at the individual level between UAWC staff and board members and the PFLP,” the Times of Israel reported.
Stripe declined a request for comment.
