A Dutch court sentenced a 58-year-old man to four years in prison, with one year suspended, for transferring approximately €8 million to Hamas-affiliated organizations over more than a decade, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service announced Tuesday.

The Leidschendam resident made the transfers between 2010 and 2023 in cooperation with the Rotterdam-based Israa Charitable Foundation Netherlands. Prosecutors said he played “a leading and decisive role in the collection and the ultimate destination of the funds” and knowingly evaded sanctions by using intermediary structures to move the money to Hamas. He also misled financial institutions by concealing his ties to the foundation.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Israa in June for its Hamas ties. According to OFAC, Israa is a member of the sanctioned Union of Good, an organization that allegedly reports directly to Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and raises funds for the terror group under the cover of charitable work. Israa’s representatives, Amin Ghazi Abu Rashed and Israa Abouo Rashed, are alleged Hamas operatives.

Prosecutors said the convicted man effectively continued the terrorism financing operation of Al Aqsa Foundation, a previously sanctioned Hamas front based in Germany, through Israa — picking up where Al Aqsa left off after OFAC sanctioned that group in 2003.

Al Aqsa’s director, Mahmoud Amr, was allegedly a Hamas activist. Israa employees in Denmark, Germany, and Norway have also been charged with Hamas financing.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)