Terror-Aligned Charity Human Appeal Should Be Prosecuted, Not Publicly Funded

• Newly uncovered archived webpages indicate that Human Appeal’s U.K. office worked to “form” the U.K. contingent of the Union of Good, a terror-financing umbrella organization later designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, which described it as “an organization created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization.”
• Over the past few years, accounts filed by Human Appeal’s headquarters in the U.K. report millions of dollars of financial transfers to groups in Gaza that work closely and publicly with the Hamas terrorist regime.
• Human Appeal head Mohamed Ashmawey appears to have a long history of involvement with Islamist causes, including a stint with the Kuwait-based International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO), a terror-aligned charity that previously publicly partnered with the late Hamas terror leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Today, IICO describes Human Appeal as one of its partners.
• Human Appeal U.K. denies any connection to Human Appeal in the U.A.E, which intelligence agencies have accused of extensive terror-financing activities. Human Appeal’s denials persist in spite of almost identical historical logos and an archived website hosted by Human Appeal’s U.K. office, in which the U.A.E. Human Appeal is listed as a “regional office.”
• Former top staff at Human Appeal U.K. include Moin Shubib, a prominent British Islamist activist. An FBI document appears to allege Shubib served as a senior Hamas leader.
• Events organized by Human Appeal U.K. and Human Appeal USA have repeatedly featured extremist preachers who have expressed openly anti-Jewish, racist and pro-terror rhetoric.
• Despite the repeated allegations of extremism and terror financing directed at Human Appeal, Western governments and financial institutions have repeatedly partnered with the radical charity.

Just a few years after a change in leadership and a promise to “transform” its operations, Human Appeal, a prominent and wealthy Western Islamist organization with offices across the globe, has handed millions of dollars to proxies and supporters of the designated terrorist organization Hamas. New evidence has also emerged of Human Appeal’s historical involvement with the Union of Good, a terror financing organization established by Hamas.

For several decades, journalists and analysts have expressed concerns over Human Appeal’s involvement with domestic extremists and overseas terrorist fundraising networks. Despite these warnings, Human Appeal’s headquarters in the U.K. and its office in the U.S. have escaped prosecution. Several offices have even benefited from partnership and support of the U.S. Agency of International Development and European governmental bodies.

A new survey of Human Appeal’s history, financial partners, and activities, however, indicates that the establishment of criminal inquiries may be a more suitable response than the provision of public funds.

In documents filed with the U.K. Charity Commission over the past four years, Human Appeal U.K.’s accounts reveal direct relationships and funding arrangements with major Hamas proxies in Gaza, an investigation by the Middle East Forum now reveals.

Since 2020, Human Appeal has handed 4.7 million GBP ($6 million USD) to the Islamic Zakat Society (IZS). Also known as the Gaza Zakat Committee, IZS is a leading charitable partner of Hamas.

IZS, whose website pledges “steadfast soldiers” for “Jerusalem,” operates joint events with Hamas government departments and its police force, under the supervision of Hamas leaders. Hamas officials even declared at an IZS sponsored event “attended by the leadership of the Hamas movement in eastern Gaza” that students trained at an IZS institution will “return our lands to us” through “the power of jihad.”

IZS’s head, Hazem Al-Sirraj, who passed away earlier this year, served as a prominent Hamas cleric in Gaza and studied under the terror group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Sirraj regularly spoke at Hamas events, at one point serving as keynote speaker at a Hamas conference in Gaza for the “sons of Hamas,” including Hamas “founders, scientists, politicians and academics.” Another top IZS official, meanwhile, expressed support for Hamas on his social media, honoring Al-Qassam Brigades operatives and praising calls for “vengeance on the Jews.”

IZS boasts of affiliations with multiple branches of Human Appeal, including those of Ireland, Spain, France, and the U.K.

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Human Appeal UK’s grants to other institutions, as listed in its 2021 report.

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Human Appeal UK’s grants to other institutions, as listed in its 2023 report.

Human Appeal U.K. has given another 3 million GBP ($3.8 million USD) since 2020 to the Al-Zakat Committee of Jerusalem (sometimes spelled “Al Zakah Committee of Jerusalem”). In late 2023, Israeli authorities reportedly banned the committee as a Hamas front, following review of an indictment filed a year earlier, which charged, according to Palestinian media, that “the association was founded by Hamas activists and distributed a large portion of its funds to families in need, including the families of Hamas activists and the families of martyrs.”

Human Appeal also provided $833,000 to the Bayader Association for Environment and Development, a charity involved with senior Hamas officials, including the son of the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Founded in 2007, shortly after Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, Bayader operates in close cooperation with the Hamas regime. Its 2021 annual report notes “coordination” and “meetings” with Hamas’s Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Works, Ministry of Social Affairs, and Ministry of Agriculture.

Bayader staff openly praise terrorists. For example, the charity’s financial director, Abd Rabbo Saeed Abu Haddaf, recently mourned the death of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Ahmed Abu Deka, whom he referred to as a “brother and friend.”

The rest of Human Appeal’s accounts note associations with other antisemitic and pro-Hamas organizations. The website of one Palestinian beneficiary, Al-Tawasol Forum Society, appears to oppose teaching the Holocaust to Palestinian students in light of “the horrific massacres committed by Jews.” Other published material hosted by Al-Tawasol seems to express regret at the factious political divisions that keep Hamas and other violent organizations from collaborating with other Palestinian organizations.

In previous years, Human Appeal also partnered with the Unlimited Friends Association (UFA), another Gaza-based charity with connections to the Hamas terror regime. UFA is involved with senior Hamas leaders and promotes violently antisemitic rhetoric across its social media pages. The charity hosts events to provide financial support to the “the families of martyrs and prisoners.”

Human Appeal’s Gaza partners hate Jews. In 2013, UFA’s own Facebook page published a social media post stating: “We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif from the filth of the most dirty Jews.” In April 2021, UFA director Jomaa Khadoura called on his own Facebook page for God to “cleanse Al-Aqsa from the impurity of the Jews.”

Despite existing media reports about UFA’s terror ties, Human Appeal not only embarked on a close relationship but unashamedly reports its “partnership” with UFA on its own website.

Human Appeal has also been a steadfast supporter of the Islamic University of Gaza, a major Hamas-linked institution in the Palestinian territory. The IUG was founded by Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin and remains a key Hamas outpost today. In 2017, Human Appeal handed IUG over $180,000, according to the charity’s annual report.

On July 10, an Israeli airstrike reportedly killed three Human Appeal staff in Gaza. While Israeli authorities have not stated the reason for the strike, at least one of the Human Appeal staff members killed appeared supportive of Hamas terror, seemingly welcoming the October 7 attacks on social media.

Over the past several months, the law firm Carter Ledyard & Milburn, on behalf of Human Appeal USA, has written to the Middle East Forum to demand “corrective action” over our writings about its client.

In particular, Carter Ledyard & Milburn is keen to dispel any notion that Human Appeal’s U.K. headquarters was ever involved with the Union of Good, a charitable coalition established by Hamas. The Union of Good, alternatively written as the “Union for Good,” is itself designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization.

Any indication that Human Appeal “in 2008 … was on a list of Hamas-linked organizations referred to as the Union of Good,” insists Alan Lewis of Carter Ledyard & Milburn, would be “false and defamatory.” Mr. Lewis, conceding the Union of Good is “Hamas-linked,” claims that the “Charity Commission of England and Wales conducted an investigation and concluded that HAUK was not a member of the … Union of Good.”

The U.K. headquarters of his client, Human Appeal, however, previously showed otherwise. A Middle East Forum review of archived Human Appeal websites found that the U.K. Human Appeal office once explicitly noted its involvement with the Union of Good.

Archived copies of Human Appeal U.K.’s own website from 2001 clearly list a page featuring both the “Union of Good” as well as its “101 Days Campaign” (which, as the U.S. Treasury Department notes, is a Union of Good alias). Human Appeal published links to this page with the explanatory text: “British charities come together to form the Union for Good (UK).” WHOIS data records that the hosting website, hai.org.uk, was registered and maintained by Human Appeal’s office in the U.K.

On its own website, the U.K. charity Interpal, a designated terror charity and Union of Good member itself, in 2003 also listed Human Appeal’s U.K. branch as a Union of Good member.

As the Treasury Department notes, Essam Yousef, the “secretary general of the Union of Good … also acts as the vice-chairman of the United Kingdom-based Interpal, which was designated in 2003 for providing financial support to Hamas under the cover of charitable activity.”

Just before Interpal was designated as a terrorist group in 2003, Human Appeal U.K. quite happily listed this Hamas front Interpal as an organization it “had the honour of working with.” After Interpal was designated, Human Appeal and Interpal officials seemingly continued to appear together at public charity events, according to British media.

In 2005, according to the Independent, Israeli prosecutors accused “British charities Human Appeal International and Interpal” of diverting money raised to “help the Palestinian poor … to fund terror and support the families of suicide bombers.” (Human Appeal International is the former name of Human Appeal U.K. before it changed name in 2015, followed by a more extensive re-brand in 2018.)

Interpal’s Essam Yousef also established the U.K. charity Education Aid for Palestinians (EAP), along with Muin Kamel Mohammed Shabib (also spelled Moin Shubib), who today serves as its CEO.

Shabib is alleged to be the same Muin Kamel Mohammed Shabib who reportedly attended a Hamas meeting in Philadelphia in the 1990s famously wiretapped by the FBI. As noted by British academic Damon Perry, federal officials in the United States apparently stated that Shabib “admitted supporting HAMAS financially and politically” and reportedly served as “a senior HAMAS activist … formerly in charge of HAMAS’ Central Sector (Ramallah-Jerusalem) in the West Bank.”

Meanwhile, counter-terrorism expert Matthew Levitt at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy referred to Shabib in 2008 as “a member of Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.”

Once again, these Hamas networks seemingly link back to Human Appeal. Shabib claims to have served as CEO of Human Appeal’s U.K. branch for many years.

When asked about Shabib’s reported involvement with Hamas, Human Appeal’s attorneys responded: “HAUK does not in any way support or affiliate with Hamas or other terrorist groups or persons that support terrorism.” Shabib did not respond to requests for comment.

Hamas appears to have appreciated Interpal and Human Appeal’s efforts in the past. In 2011, as noted by the Daily Telegraph, Human Appeal’s logo was apparently one of a number of Western Islamist charity logos featured at a Hamas ceremony in Gaza organized by Hamas Social Affairs Minister and Shura Council member Ahmed Al-Kurd, whom the U.S. Treasury designated as a terrorist in 2007.

In its legal threats to its critics, offices of Human Appeal have repeatedly worked to mire accusations in the confused murky history of Human Appeal’s various branches and their degrees of interconnectedness. Legal re-structures, new logos, new legal names and multiple websites hosted by Human Appeal in the U.K. have muddied matters even further.

The U.K. headquarters of Human Appeal, founded in 1991, today maintains “country offices” and “partner offices” in countries across the world, including the U.S, Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, and much of the Middle East and South Asia.

Human Appeal has invested heavily in its branches in Europe and North America as key outposts, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on these offices, describing the spending as “charitable capacity building.” In return, these branches appear to forward fundraised sums to the U.K. headquarters, such as a transfer in 2022 of over $500,000 from the U.S. branch to the U.K. headquarters.

The U.S. Human Appeal office was founded recently in 2022 and operates hundreds of volunteers across California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Virginia.

A decade ago, the make-up of the Human Appeal “family” appeared to look a little different.

Around 2014, Human Appeal in the U.K. began a process of rebranding, changing its name from Human Appeal International to just Human Appeal. The charity worked hard to distance itself from other Human Appeal organizations in Australia, Bangladesh, the UAE. and elsewhere despite previously identical logos and names.

Human Appeal is particularly pained to distance itself from Human Appeal International in the United Arab Emirates. Human Appeal’s U.S. lawyers, Carter Ledyard & Milburn, informed the Middle East Forum:

The Daily Telegraph has expressed doubts about the gist of this claim before, reporting in 2015: “The UK branch’s own website states that they are divisions of the same organisation. The UK and UAE branches’ logos are the same, apart from the translation of the charity’s name into Arabic.”

Indeed, we note that in an archived page of the Human Appeal U.K.’s website from December 2004, Human Appeal listed Human Appeal International UAE as one of its “regional offices.” The phone number listed is still used by Human Appeal International UAE today, which has since changed its name to the International Charity Organization.

And an archived copy of humanappeal.org from 2013 links to the websites of Human Appeal U.K. and Human Appeal UAE, implicitly listing them as branches of the same organization. Historical WHOIS data shows that humanappeal.org, the domain name linking to both branches, was registered in 2011 by Human Appeal’s office in the U.K.

And today, the website of Human Appeal Pakistan, which shares Human Appeal U.K.'s current logo, lists “Human Appeal International-UAE” and “Human Appeal International- Aus” as the office’s “funding resources,” alongside “Human Appeal International-UK.”

Human Appeal offices have good reason to distance itself from Human Appeal UAE, which Alan Lewis at Carter Ledyard & Milburn concedes “apparently has been accused of funding terrorist organizations.”

A 1996 CIA report mentions that Human Appeal UAE was among a number of charities used as conduits for funds to terrorist organizations. The FBI, in 2003, claimed there was a “close relationship between Human Appeal International [UAE] and Hamas”.

Leaked State Department cables in 2003 revealed American diplomats’ belief that “HAI [Human Appeal International UAE] was sending financial support to organizations associated with Hamas and that members of its field offices in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya had connections to al-Qaeda associates.”

Other governments have alleged the Human Appeal UAE’s terror ties extend to other Human Appeal organizations. In 2008, the Israeli Government reportedly proscribed Human Appeal groups in the UAE, Britain, and Australia as among the “bodies that are active abroad and which are responsible for raising very large sums for Hamas activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.”

Human Appeal’s attorneys similarly today claim Human Appeal Australia is “unrelated to Human Appeal UK,” despite a 2013 humanappeal.org webpage managed by Human Appeal U.K. listing Human Appeal Australia as a regional branch. Human Appeal U.K.’s 2017 accounts also reveal a transfer of over $170,000 from Human Appeal Australia.

Nonetheless, it is conceivable that Human Appeal UAE and various branches have completely separated from the London headquarters. But even if this position is accurate, it does little to address concerns about Human Appeal U.K.’s continued involvement with Hamas proxies in the Gaza Strip and extremists in the West, as outlined in this report.

As for Human Appeal’s branch in the U.S, it seems clear that Human Appeal U.K. and Human Appeal USA are the same organization: they share not just websites and logos, but the same head as well: Mohamed Ashmawey.

Human Appeal officially appointed its current CEO, Mohamed Ashmawey, in April 2019; although Ashmawey’s name is listed as CEO as early as Human Appeal’s 2017 report (potentially due to a late filing).

Human Appeal announced Ashmawey’s appointment with a press release noting his “wealth of experience” from various roles as “member of the Board of Directors of prominent non-profits, including Mercy International and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and as the president of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) from 1993 to 1998.”

Human Appeal left out one of Ashmawey’s previous jobs. Ashmawey’s LinkedIn page discloses his job, from October 2016 to March 2018, as a “senior management consultant” at the International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO) in Kuwait.

The IICO is a terror-tied Islamist charity. In 2012, IICO organized a ceremony honoring Hamas leaders, including the late Ismail Haniyeh as well as Yahya Sinwar, organizer of the October 7 terror attacks.

Counter-terrorism analysts have listed the IICO as an inaugural member of the Union of Good, an international fundraising network set up by Hamas. Under U.S. law, the Union of Good is itself a designated terrorist entity.

The Danish government, meanwhile, has added IICO to its list of foreign entities barred from sending financial donations to recipients in Denmark because of concerns over its extremist ties.

Multiple senior officials of various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamist movement whose offshoots include Hamas, have long served in senior positions on IICO’s board, according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch.

Today, the IICO lists Human Appeal as a “partner,” with Human Appeal staff speaking at IICO events and sponsoring IICO conferences.

When asked about Ashmawey’s involvement with the IICO, Human Appeal’s attorneys responded: “HAUSA and its CEO, Mohammed Ashmawey, do not support and are not affiliated in any way with terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”

Before Ashmawey joined IICO, he worked for almost decade in senior positions at the Islamic Relief franchise, serving ultimately as the CEO of its U.K. headquarters, Islamic Relief Worldwide. While serving at Islamic Relief, just months after IICO’s embrace of Hamas, Ashmawey “signed a cooperation protocol” with IICO on behalf of Islamic Relief.

Islamic Relief is the leading charitable institution of the Muslim Brotherhood. The charitable franchise is one of the leading Islamist financial institutions across the globe, with branches, offices, and affiliates in over 40 countries. Prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood established the charity, and leading Islamist activists continue to run the franchise today, leading to bans and blacklisting in multiple Arab and European countries.

In 2020, the U.S. State Department denounced the “blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels of Islamic Relief Worldwide.”

Islamic Relief has worked in Gaza with many of the same Hamas proxies embraced by Human Appeal, including the Unlimited Friends Association and the Gaza Zakat Committee, both profiled above. In 2022, Islamic Relief’s overseas branches worked with terrorist officials in Gaza, including Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad.

In 2015, during Ashmawey’s tenure, Islamic Relief U.K. funded and worked with the Al-Falah Benevolent Society. At the time, Al-Falah was run by “well-known Hamas figure” Ramadan Tamboura and Jamal Hamdi Al-Haddad, who managed a Hamas-run Hebrew language program for Palestinians in Gaza titled “Know Your Enemy.”

Still, this was not Ashmawey’s first brush with extremists.

As Ashmawey’s profile at Human Appeal notes, he served as the president of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) from 1993 to 1998. While Ashmawey held the position of president, MAYA organized a conference in 1995 with Hamas terror leader Sheikh Muhammad Siyam, who, according to the New York Times, told the conference: “Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all. Exterminate them. No peace ever.”

In 1998, Ashmawey reportedly welcomed Hamas financier Wagdy Abd el-Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim into his home, after the infamous hate preacher was denied entry to Canada (the Times reports the denial was because of “his support for suicide bombings”). Ghoneim has since been banned from the U.S, Britain, and Switzerland, with the U.S. citing Hamas fundraising activities, while the U.K. government has described Ghoneim as someone “considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to foment, justify or glory terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs and to provoke others to commit terrorist acts.”

Nonetheless, according to a report in the Toronto Star, following his rejection from Canada, Ashmawey let “Ghoneim stay in his Detroit home,” with Ashmawey telling the paper that “Muslims around the world are upset over [Ghoniem’s] ordeal.” [Source: Heather Greenwood, “Muslim cleric’s jailing in Canada angers followers,” Toronto Star, January 11, 1998.]

Ashmawey also served on the board of Mercy International. The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that “Mercy International originally went by the name Human Concern International (HCI), an organization created in the 1980s to support the Afghan jihad against the Soviets. Their Pakistan offices were headed by Ahmed Khadr, a close associate of bin Laden and an al Qaeda moneyman. In 1989, HCI changed its name to Mercy International-USA and moved to Michigan.”

Amazingly, despite Ashmawey’s long history of connections to extremists, the Human Appeal board still seems to have considered him a sanitized alternative to its previous chief executive, who was reportedly fired from the organization following government scrutiny over Human Appeal’s activities in Syria.

In 2021, the U.K. Charity Commission published its report into the activities of Human Appeal U.K., the result of an inquiry launched in December 2017. The Charity Commission noted that in April 2017, three of Human Appeal’s trucks “were stopped in Syria and held for several hours by an armed group.” Then, “on 8 October 2017 the charity’s warehouse in Idlib, Syria was seized by Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, a proscribed terrorist organisation affiliated to Al-Qaeda.”

Astonishingly, the Commission found, Human Appeal failed “to report so serious an issue to the Commission” for “almost two months,” in an apparent violation of the statutory responsibility to do so under the U.K’s Terrorism Act of 2000.

The Commission also noted concerns about the lack of “due diligence” by Human Appeal over its relationships with a donor in the United Arab Emirates, unreported payments in Turkey, as well as the transport of large amounts of cash bills through Greece.

According to the National, the previous head of Human Appeal, Othman Moqbel, was fired a few months after “the seizure of its aid warehouse by extremists.”

The Middle East Forum contacted Moqbel for comment. He responded: “I parted ways with Human Appeal eight years ago and have not represented the organisation since. As such, I am not in a position to comment on its historic or current activities. … I wish the organisation and its staff all the very best.”

In 2021, media reports quoted the new and current Human Appeal chief executive Mohamed Ashmawey pledging “zero tolerance” for such breaches and promising complete transformation of the charity’s practices.

That same year, however, Human Appeal was already funding the Hamas proxies in Gaza identified above.

As noted in multiple British media reports, the U.K. headquarters of Human Appeal has repeatedly given platforms to extremist speakers.

In 2011, the Telegraph reports, Human Appeal organized events with Raed Saleh, a Hamas supporter who refers to Jews as “bacteria” and “monkeys.” The event was jointly organized with the Palestinian Forum in Britain, whose head, Zaher Birawi, has been described in Parliament as a “senior Hamas operative.”

That same year, Human Appeal sponsored an event which featured Haitham al-Haddad as a guest speaker. Al-Haddad has declared Jews to be “enemies of god, and the descendants of apes and pigs.” In another sermon, Haddad states that “the goal of jihad is, primarily, to ensure that Sharia governs the entire earth,” and insists it “is obligatory for Muslims to rule the entire earth by the law of Allah, even if that leads to fighting the People of the Book [Jews and Christians].”

The same Human Appeal event also featured Zahir Mahmood, a prominent radical cleric and defender of Hamas.

Over a decade later, under Ashmawey’s leadership, it doesn’t seem much has changed. Indeed, extremists such as Zahir Mahmood continue to speak at Human Appeal events in the U.K, sharing the platform with Ashmawey himself.

In the United States, meanwhile, Human Appeal USA (whose website also lists Ashmawey as CEO) regularly hosts extremist preachers. In just the past few months, Human Appeal events in America have featured extremists such as Ammar Shahin, Siraj Wahhaj, and Waleed Basyouni.

Shahin, imam of the Islamic Center of Davis, California, called in 2017 for the eradication of Jews, according to a translation of his sermon published by the Middle East Media Research Institute. Shahin posted pictures on his social media of the early hours of Hamas’s attack on October 7th, later urging “support for Gaza” and claiming that “victory is near.”

Asked about Human Appeal’s involvement with Shahin, the charity’s attorneys stated: “Shahin is in no way affiliated with HAUSA” and that “HAUSA does not endorse or condone hateful and violent rhetoric, and instead condemns calls for violence against Israelis, Jews or any other group of people.”

Wahhaj, meanwhile, has called on American Muslims to carry out acts of jihad and to send weapons to Muslims around the world. He has advocated stoning adulterers and cutting off the hands of thieves. He advises his congregants: “Take not into your intimacy those outside of your race. They will not fail to corrupt you.” Wahhaj has also spoken at Human Appeal events in the United Kingdom.

Basyouni states Hamas is an “elected government” that should not have been designated as a terrorist organization. He concedes that he “disagrees” with Hamas on the issues of suicide bombings, “even if it is done in Tel Aviv.”

The Middle East Forum contacted past and present staff and trustees at Human Appeal’s U.K. headquarters, requesting comment on the charity’s apparent involvement with the Union of Good and other proxies and supporters of Hamas. After several legal threats, the Middle East Forum eventually received a lengthy letter in response from Human Appeal’s attorneys, flatly denying many of the sourced allegations above. We include this letter in the appendix below.

Meanwhile, there is more work to be done. In 2020, despite an ongoing Charity Commission investigation into its activities, Human Appeal reported receiving over £322,000 (~$435,000) of government grants. In 2024, USAID disclosed “collaboration” with Human Appeal in Sudan, despite previous concerns about the charity’s terror ties expressed by the FBI and CIA, and discussed in Congress.

Human Appeal does not depend financially on government funding. It is a wealthy charity, with branches or offices in over a dozen countries. In its 2023 report, the charity’s U.K. headquarters declared revenue of over £56 million ($72 million).

Government funding does, however, provide legitimacy: public support sanitizes Human Appeal’s reputation in the face of apparent financial misdeed, overt affiliation with terrorist proxies, and unabashed embrace of extremists.

It is vital that banks, international organizations, and governments do not allow this charity to operate with impunity. Law enforcement should investigate its terror associates; financial institutions should close its accounts; and other humanitarian groups should steer clear of this organization seemingly dedicated to advancing extremist ideology through exploitation of international charity.

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[Letters of response from Human Appeal’s attorneys, Carter Ledyard & Milburn]

In a series of threatening letters to the Middle East Forum, Alan S. Lewis at Carter Ledyard & Milburn defends his client Human Appeal. Although Mr. Lewis claims to represent Human Appeal USA, his letters go to great lengths to defend the reputation of Human Appeal U.K. as well.

In response to our allegations, Mr. Lewis states unequivocally that “HAUSA and HAUK are not Islamist organizations and in no way support Islamism, Hamas, terrorism or terrorist activities.”

This statement is welcome, but remains betrayed by the weight of sourced examples presented by the Middle East Forum, above. We have published a copy of Carter Ledyard & Milburn’s valiant letters, but we also respond directly and briefly to the key statements in their most recent letter here:

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “HAUSA is affiliated with Human Appeal United Kingdom (HAUK), but has nothing to do with HAI-UAE or Human Appeal Australia and never has had anything to do with those entities.”

The Middle East Forum does not and has never claimed that Human Appeal USA is affiliated with HAI-UAE or Human Appeal Australia. We do show above, however, that Human Appeal USA’s parent organization, Human Appeal U.K., has previously seemed to share logos, branding and websites with both those organizations.

The exact nature of Human Appeal U.K.'s murky past relationship with Human Appeal International in the UAE is repeatedly employed as a straw man argument by Human Appeal and its attorneys to avoid more serious contemporary allegations against the charity’s U.K. headquarters, uncovered and presented in the report above.

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “...that there exists some overarching organization or franchise called Human Appeal that has ‘branches in the UK and the US'—is demonstrably false. ... Mr. Westrop’s stubborn refusal to accept that HAUSA and HAUK do not have ‘branches’ in the Middle East and are not part of some broader franchise is evidence of the apparent malice he bears toward HAUSA and HAUK.”

Human Appeal’s own published annual reports list multiple offices in countries around the world. The U.K. office is listed explicitly as the “headquarters.”

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “The Islamic Zakat Society is an independent NGO that works with multiple Western charities including several United Nations bodies. It is not affiliated with or linked to Hamas or Hamas leaders.”

Arabic media has repeatedly noted IZS’s involvement with Hamas leaders.

IZS has been repeatedly tasked by Hamas to carry out the terrorist regime’s social welfare projects. In 2009, for instance, IZS organized a graduation ceremony for students at Al-Mahatta mosque in Gaza. The keynote speaker was Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, who declared that students would “return our lands to us” through “jihadist force.” Barhoum also conveyed a “greeting from the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas” to those present and to the “martyrs” of the local area.

In 2010, Hamas police and the IZS organized an anti-drug initiative, in which Hamas authorities promised to execute alleged drug dealers.

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “Neither HAUSA nor HAUK have ever worked with, supported, or contributed funds to the Al Zakah Committee of Jerusalem or entities with similar names.”

Human Appeal U.K.'s accounts explicitly list the transfer of funds to the “Al Zakah Committee of Jerusalem.”

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “HAUK is not and never was affiliated with or a member of the 101 Days Campaign or the Union of Good.”

Archived copies of a Human Appeal U.K. website from 2001 clearly list a page featuring both the “Union of Good” as well as its “101 Days Campaign” (which, as the U.S. Treasury Department notes, is a Union of Good alias). Human Appeal published links to this page with the explanatory text: “British charities come together to form the Union for Good (UK).”

WHOIS data records that the hosting website, hai.org.uk, was registered and maintained by Human Appeal’s office in the U.K.

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “When it was suggested, in 2008, that HAUK was on a list of Hamas-linked organizations referred to as the Union of Good, the Charity Commission of England and Wales conducted an investigation and concluded that HAUK was not a member of the Hamas-linked Union of Good.”

The cited source for this claim does not actually name Human Appeal. If, indeed, the Charity Commission did investigate other alleged British charitable members of the Union of Good, then, as our screenshots above and below seemingly illustrate, the Charity Commission reached an incorrect conclusion.

The Charity Commission has long been excoriated in British media for its feckless investigations. In one instance, the Charity Commission investigated a charity that publicly described itself as “the office of ... Ayatullah Nasir Makarem Shirazi,” a Holocaust denier and Iranian regime cleric who supports the killing of Iranian pro-democracy activists and the murder of homosexuals. Despite the charity’s well-established public status as the ayatollah’s U.K. office, the Charity Commission’s investigation simply accepted the charity’s bold-faced lie that they had no link to the radical ayatollah.

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “HAUK also does not share any branding or logo with HAI-UAE and does not in any way support HAI-UAE.”

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “Dr. Ashmawey served as a Senior Management Consultant for the International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO) from October 2016 to March 2018 (approximately 17 months). He was not in any way affiliated with IICO in 2012, when according to your question, the alleged IICO event occurred.”

Dr. Ashmawey signed agreements with IICO on behalf of his employer at the time in early 2013, just months after the IICO organized public events with the designated terrorists Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.

Human Appeal’s Attorneys: “[Imam] Shahin is in no way affiliated with HAUSA.”

Human Appeal has now announced yet another event at which Ammar Shahin will speak, to be held in late August. The event will also feature Ammar AlShukry, who, on the day of the October 7 pogrom, appeared to welcome the attacks, urging God to “grant” the people of Gaza “freedom from the occupying apartheid state.”