Faith, Hope and Charity: The Interpal Story

2017 book edited by Ibrahim Hewitt presenting the history of Interpal, the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund charity

Faith, Hope & Clarity: The Interpal Story is a book edited by Ibrahim Hewitt, chair of the board of trustees of Interpal (the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund), that chronicles the charity's founding in 1994, its humanitarian and development work in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon, and its responses to allegations of supporting terrorism.

The book includes personal accounts from founders and staff, details of UK Charity Commission investigations that found no evidence of illegal activity, and descriptions of projects providing relief, education, health and community support to Palestinians.

Introduction

The introduction by Ibrahim Hewitt describes the 22 August 2003 United States designation of Interpal as a "specially-designated global terrorist entity" under President George W Bush.

It was probably the defining moment of Interpal's 20-plus years of existence and yet I had to read about it online. Nobody in the US administration bothered to let us know that the then President George W Bush was "freezing the assets" of a number of individuals and organisations "alleged to have provided support to Hamas". The first that I knew of it was when I read the BBC website on 22 August 2003. Amongst the names listed I saw "The Palestinians Relief and Development Fund, or Interpal, based in Britain".

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. From that day to this, despite the serious nature of the allegation — and the extremely debilitating effect on Interpal's ability to operate with normal banking facilities, essential for any charity — neither the US authorities nor the Israelis (from where the request for the charity to be listed as a "specially-designated global terrorist entity" originated) have ever provided a shred of credible evidence to back up the allegation.

The designation triggered the third of a number of investigations by the UK Charity Commission, none of which have found evidence of any illegal activity by Interpal. The trustees welcomed all these efforts because, as a result, we believe that we are a much stronger organisation with robust policies and procedures in place to ensure that none of our funding goes astray.

That has not been enough for the US Treasury to remove Interpal from the terrorist list, though. Off the record, we have been told that the decision to place Interpal on the list in the first place came through the US State Department. "It was entirely a political decision, which will require another political decision to reverse it." That is probably never going to happen.

Interpal has thus laboured under the "terrorist entity" label for almost 15 years, during which time we have gone from strength to strength as a one-issue charity helping Palestinians in desperate need. As the chair of Interpal, I have been privileged to travel the world — the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and New Zealand — representing the charity; I have met royalty and ministers, and written and spoken on the Palestine issue widely at home and abroad. If there was any substance at all to the US-Israeli allegations, would that have been possible? As one senior Metropolitan Police Special Branch officer commented, “the absence of any police involvement [in Interpal’s case] is hugely significant.”

Our small charity has also benefited from the support of many people in prominent positions in their respective fields; from politicians and surgeons, to media personalities and activists, Interpal has found some wonderful friends. They understand the incredible difference that our efforts make to ordinary Palestinians in the refugee camps of occupied Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Interpal is caught in an extremely politicised situation, both in the field and with regards to our status, and yet as a charitable organisation we are prohibited from having too much involvement in politics. A great deal of our time and resources are spent on refuting terrorism allegations, which the right-wing media regurgitate from time to time; this is probably one of the reasons why they are made, keeping us busy and away from the task in hand of helping Palestinians.

From the charity’s early days in the light of the Oslo Accords, through allegations of wrongdoing, to growing support across a broad section of society, Interpal has seen its humanitarian aid make a real difference to the lives of Palestinians in its main areas of operation. Interpal has also witnessed small development projects grow into the pillars of many refugee and other destitute communities: schools, clinics, employment programmes and universities funded by Interpal are now indispensable to their users.

Where once Interpal was just one of a handful of international NGOs in the field, there are now many more. It is not unusual to visit a project funded by the charity and find plaques and certificates acknowledging support from other well-known NGOs, including USAID; yes, the US government funds the same projects as Interpal and yet it still judges the latter to be a “terrorist entity”, such is the absurd situation in which the charity finds itself.

In our fund-raising and distribution, though, we put that to one side. Interpal's trustees and staff work hard to ensure that the charitable aims of the organisation are fulfilled, and that as much help as possible is given to our beneficiaries. Politicians come and go, but the needs of the Palestinians get worse every day, often due to the inaction of the former who could improve the living conditions of the latter but choose not to, for all sorts of reasons.

Much has been said and written about Interpal and its trustees; some of it is accurate; a great deal is not. The purpose of this book is to tell Interpal's side of the story so that readers can make their own minds up about the veracity, or otherwise, of the Israeli-American allegations.

We also hope that readers will get an insight into the sort of work that Interpal's staff in the field carry out on a daily basis, as the charity strives to bring a degree of normality into the lives of Palestinians who exist in anything but normal conditions. Interpal is a human endeavour, so is always seeking ways to improve in both the organisation and delivery of its humanitarian aid. That the charity is still thriving is a testament to the dedication of Interpal's staff and supporters and the patent falsehood of the allegations against it.

The trustees of Interpal look forward to the day when our name is cleared and the charity's reputation is restored, God-Willing; and pray for the day when NGOs like Interpal are no longer needed because the Palestinians are living in their own land in freedom. Until that day arrives, however, we know what we have to do, and we will continue to do whatever we can to help Palestinians in desperate need; that has been our sole aim since the charity was formed in 1994, and it remains true to this day.

Enjoy our story. We certainly have.

Ibrahim Hewitt Chair of the Board of Trustees, Interpal

Interpal is born

Interpal's roots go back to the early 1980s, in the aftermath of the 1982 attack by a Christian Lebanese militia, allied to the Israel Defence Forces, on the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in West Beirut. The resulting massacre left between 3,000 and 3,500 Palestinian men, women and children dead, and highlighted the desperate plight of displaced Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Essam Yousef, who went on to become Interpal's managing trustee and vice chairman, was then a young Palestinian studying computer science in London. Like many other expatriate Palestinians in the diaspora he wanted to do something, anything, to help. "Being Palestinians and living with relative freedom in Britain," he says, "we saw that there was an opportunity to work for the people of Palestine." His particular "something" was to mobilise a group of like-minded people and open a new British charity. The Palestine and Lebanon Relief Fund (PLRF) duly came into being in late 1982.

The going was tough in the early days for this forerunner of Interpal. Its first collection, at Regent's Park Mosque in London, only raised around £200. While fund-raising soon improved, the charity was faced with the challenge of building up networks for fund distribution within occupied Palestine and the surrounding countries.

The PLRF team decided that the most practical way to get assistance to the neediest people was to support worthwhile projects being carried out by charities already operating inside the occupied Palestine territories, or in the refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The utmost care was taken to demonstrate that the charities involved directed funds towards humanitarian and social projects. This was essential, given the view among some Israeli politicians and journalists that such charitable donations were funding terrorism: “Alms or arms?” was the cry.

In this respect, the close control that the Israeli government exerted over all aspects of charitable activity in the occupied Palestinian areas, while creating its own problems, also had advantages for the PLRF, as it provided the clearest possible guarantee that funds were going where they were supposed to go. All transfers to charities in the occupied Palestinian areas had to be routed through the Israeli financial system. What's more, all of the partner charities were registered, recognised and, effectively, controlled by the Israeli state; in some cases in the West Bank, they were also registered with the Jordanian authorities.

“In no way would Israel have allowed us to misuse money,” explains Essam Yousef. “The best protection we had was provided by the Israeli security agencies. They monitored the whole thing and they would not, in any way, have allowed organisations to use money for any non-charitable purposes, such as buying arms.”

The First Intifada: a major turning point

The PLRF built up its funding programmes steadily throughout its first five years of existence, but it was another tragedy that really underlined the need for the kind of support for Palestinians that the charity was able to provide. The First Intifada – which lasted from December 1987 until 1993 – was a major turning point in establishing the Palestinians as actors in their own cause. The human cost of this was high, with confrontations between Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli security forces leading to deaths, horrific injuries and the further displacement of the population.

“The Intifada caught the attention of the world, and the whole world wanted to help,” recalls Essam Yousef. “At that time, we started to look at how the PLRF could become more involved with helping Palestinians within Palestine itself, which was, by then, totally controlled by the Israelis.”

By early 1988, it was clear that the Israel security forces were targeting young Palestinian men and breaking their arms deliberately — an act caught at least once on camera — to prevent them from throwing stones. This stung Essam Yousef into action. He organised a meeting with well-known Muslim convert Yusuf Islam — the former Cat Stevens — who put together a delegation of British Muslim to visit Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to see for themselves what was happening to the people of Palestine.

The visit was a life-changer for one member of the group. Yusuf Islam's PA at the time was Ibrahim Hewitt, who went on to become a committed advocate of the Palestinian struggle for justice and, in 1996, a trustee of Interpal. He has now been chairman of the charity for more than 20 years. A report of the delegation's visit in March 1988 was published under the title "Blood on the Holy Land".

"This was before the 'Separation Wall' was built," he notes, "so we had fairly easy access throughout Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. What we witnessed was shocking; a real eye-opener. By the time the call came to join Interpal, I had been back to the region on a couple of other visits, and so was well aware of the desperate conditions faced by Palestinians, and the equally desperate need to do something to help them."

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 focused further attention on the plight of the Palestinians, as it triggered a wave of migrants from Iraq and the Gulf states. More than 300,000 Palestinians moved to Jordan, having lost their jobs and incomes in the Gulf. They were, once again, refugees in a strange land.

The Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Accords I and II signed by the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993 and 1995 created a new spirit of hope that the Palestinians might secure new freedoms. The creation of the Palestinian Authority to provide a degree of autonomy for parts of the West Bank and Gaza, appeared to provide the conditions for a more effective distribution of humanitarian aid.

Biography: Essam Yousef

The founding trustee of Interpal, Essam Yousef, was born in the small village of Burqa, north of the historic city of Nablus, in 1955. A close knit family of five brothers and two sisters, his parents ran a small, well-watered farm harvesting olive trees and other crops. They led a tranquil if demanding life which was interrupted by the Six Day War in June 1967, and the start of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

For the 12 year old Essam Yousef, the war was to leave its mark. He could remember the terror of the Israeli air attacks and watching an Israeli plane, high in the blue sky, lazily looking for targets; the experience traumatised him for several days. Little could he know that in later years he would be instrumental in helping Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, in particular, who continue to suffer from trauma following three major Israeli offensives and almost daily incursions against the enclave.

During the 1967 war, Essam Yousef's uncle was in the Jordanian army. He left his older son with Essam Yousef's family in the village as he was living in another town with his family. When he went to collect his son, he asked Essam Yousef's family if one his brothers could go with him and stay with the rest of his family while the war was going on. When the war ended, the uncle drove his army vehicle back to Burqa with his nephew. They came across an Israeli army convoy, which Essam Yousef's uncle thought belonged to an Arab group as it was flying Iraqi and Jordanian flags. The Israeli soldiers opened fire, hitting Essam Yousef's brother and his uncle. Although both recovered from their wounds, the experience affected the whole family.

They had all had enough. The presence of the occupiers became increasingly more threatening. It was decided that they should all head for Jordan, despite the distress felt by Essam Yousef's grandfather at leaving his family's traditional land. This journey ended up in Kuwait.

In Kuwait, Essam Yousef became increasingly aware of the implications of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian struggle for their land. He studied at a special school run by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and he became involved in the charity sector even before the opportunity arose for him to move to London and complete his education. He travelled frequently between London and his family in Kuwait, where he happened to be when Iraq invaded in 1990. The new pressures on the Palestinians caused by the invasion and the subsequent Gulf War were quickly obvious to him. Many Palestinians in the occupied territories and the pitiful refugee camps across the region depended on remittances from family members living and working in the Gulf. For too many, these dried up post-invasion.

Back in London, Essam Yousef was now married and had a young family. Studying computer science he also became involved in serious charitable work with his International Islamic Charitable Foundation. This was followed by the Palestine and Lebanon Relief Fund, which he founded in 1984, partly in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the massacre of defenceless refugees in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps. The well-documented atrocities had a huge impact on him.

Post-Oslo Accords he was motivated further and a new initiative was required to help the growing number of Palestinians in need – not only to provide humanitarian aid and relief, but also to help shattered communities to rebuild their lives and infrastructure. Interpal was born.

Essam Yousef is now a respected elder statesman of the Palestinian community in Britain and beyond known by his kunya of Abu Yousef. Key players in the charitable sector across Europe and the Middle East working with and for the people of Palestine hold him in high regard for his campaigning work and tireless efforts on behalf of those in need.

First steps

In 1992, the British government altered the way that UK-based charities were required to operate. A change in the law meant that charities above a certain size had to register with the Charity Commissioner.

It was this which, in 1993-94, prompted the PLRF team to start up a new charity. The name chosen was the “International Palestinian Relief and Development Fund” which reflected the ambition to act as a coordinator for international aid efforts across the region. While the PLRF would continue to operate separately for several years in parallel, the new charity designed for a new era would be the main fund-raising body for Palestinian aid projects.

Mindful of the need to come up with a pithier name to make the organisation more memorable and marketable, one of the charity's accountants suggested a shortened version to do just that: Interpal was born. This was a name which embraced the idea of international friendship among “pals”, as well as among Palestinians.

“From day one, the trustees knew that working with Palestine was going to be difficult,” says Jihad Qundil, Interpal's Chief Executive Officer, who has been with the charity since the very beginning. “We went through a lawyer to register the charity and were initially rejected. It took a second application before registration was approved.”

When the charity was registered in July 1994, the word “international” was removed from its official name, due to the complications involved in registering an international charity. As a result, the organisation became the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund; the working name, though, was already in common use, so Interpal it was, and Interpal it still is.

The charity was launched at Willesden Library in north-west London on 5 November, 1994. “We wanted the launch to be public and in a place that was local to us,” explains Essam Yousef. “Our first offices were nearby in Cricklewood, next to Brent Mosque and Islamic Centre, so the library was an obvious choice.”

The launch was a high-profile occasion with invitees including leading British Muslim figures of the time and other friends of the Palestinian cause. Time was of the essence as the new charity wanted to gain maximum exposure for its work in the peak campaigning season of Ramadan, which was only three months away in February 1995.

The charity’s vision was to “empower Palestinians to face their challenges and hardships” in its principal areas of operation: the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the refugee camps of Jordan and Lebanon. This was to be done by alleviating their suffering and disadvantage through immediate relief and also to support Palestinian communities through long-term development programmes.

From the start, the objective was to be a highly professional and trusted non-political organisation, whose activities were transparent and could withstand any amount of scrutiny. This openness was viewed as vital, given the mistrust with which any new organisation of this type was likely to be viewed by Israel and its international friends.

The make-up of Interpal’s first Board of Trustees reflected this careful approach, including respected figures from diverse backgrounds, including not just Palestinians, but also representatives from Egypt, Mauritius and Iraq among other countries. They had to prepare for the likelihood that Interpal’s activities would receive more scrutiny than those of other charities operating in less contentious areas.

Early challenges

Establishing Interpal had been a complex and time-consuming process, but that was just a precursor to the challenge of turning the charity’s visions into concrete actions, as practical work started in January 1995.

Many of Interpal's core personnel had the benefit of years of experience with the PLRF, including extensive operations in Palestine and the refugee camps; it was a background of which few other charities in the West could boast. "In the early days, we were seen as the specialist charity for Palestine. Those who wanted to work in Palestine would come to us for advice," Jihad Qundil points out.

"What's more," adds Essam Yousef, "we were prepared to give our experience to other charities working with Palestinians, such as Islamic Relief and Muslim Hands, as we could help them to achieve much greater things than we, as a small charity, could on our own."

As for Interpal's operations themselves, these soon adopted the blueprint which still underpins the charity's work today. The underlying principle has always been to devote a large portion of Interpal's resources to building the foundations that allow Palestinians to improve their own lives, rather than just acting as a relief agency, or targeting the development of high-profile projects that might attract donors.

According to Essam Yousef, the general policy has always been that, where possible, Interpal kick-starts a project that it can persuade others to adopt and build on. "Once it has been adopted, we move on to another project. We don't want to keep repeating what other organisations can do more easily, once we have shown the way."

So, for example, Interpal might use its expertise and connections to acquire land on which civic amenities can be built. It leaves others with deeper pockets to build a school, hospital or community venue on the land, even though donors to Interpal might find the hospital project itself a more alluring beneficiary of their funds.

"A project like that might be marketable for us in terms of its ability to increase our level of donations, but we would rather be doing something new, something that others are not yet doing, because that can make the biggest difference," says Essam Yousef.

Interpal has also used its expertise to help locally-based charities within Palestinian communities to become strong enough to act as hubs, which can then be more useful to international charities. Cleverly, it has helped them to be able to market themselves. The more capable that these organisations become, the more funds can be given to them. This is the way that Interpal has worked across its areas of operation since it was founded.

While this was going on, Interpal's senior staff built up their already deep knowledge of the areas in which the charity was operating. This meant that they could be quite sure that the aid the charity provided would, in fact, reach the right people, even in regions where operations could be hampered by the inadequacy of local administrative structures or the hurdles imposed by the Israeli occupation.

This led to Interpal starting to take supporters and influential members of the Muslim community to “Bear Witness” to what the money raised by the charity was being used for. “The only way for our staff, trustees and supporters in Britain to be informed and involved was to witness what we were doing on the ground,” explains Essam Yousef, “so we took them to the region regularly and still do. We have always had our finger on the pulse to know how things are working.”

Turbulent times

The task of building up Interpal's operations soon got tougher, as the early optimism over the peace process engendered by the Oslo Accords fizzled out much quicker than anyone had imagined. Any notion that Palestinians were going to be able to rebuild their lives in tranquility was dispelled when a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinian groups hit Israel from 1994 to 1996, believed to be a response to the killing of 29 Muslims in Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque in February 1994 by a Jewish settler, and the January 1996 assassination of Yahya Ayyash in Gaza by the Israeli security services. The bombings prompted Israel's military forces to attack Palestinians with even more ferocity than usual. The peace process involving Yasser Arafat was effectively scuppered.

Interpal was among the charities operating in the occupied Palestinian territories which became the target of claims that the money they sent to the region was being re-directed towards suicide bombers rather than development projects. Such claims lacked any credible evidence, but they were given prominent media coverage.

In March 1996, Britain's Charity Commission decided to investigate Interpal's activities following newspaper articles making such allegations of illegal activities. This was the first of several such probes which went on to form a challenging backdrop against which the charity had to carry on with its mission to support the humanitarian and social development needs of Palestinians in desperate need.

Reputation challenged

Historical background to the humanitarian crisis in occupied Palestine

The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has to be viewed within its historical context. One hundred years after Britain's then Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued his “Balfour Declaration” promising the government's support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”, the people of Palestine have seen their political and civil rights eroded systematically, first by the colonial powers and, since 1948, by the State of Israel.

The creation of Israel in Palestine up to and including 1948, resulted in the displacement (it has been called “ethnic cleansing”) of more than 700,000 Palestinians — 80 per cent of the indigenous population — who were expelled from their homes and fled to become refugees in neighbouring states, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. What followed was the systematic destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages to complete the first stage of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (Catastrophe). Thousands more were displaced or found themselves living under Israeli occupation as a result of the Six-Day War in 1967. International laws, conventions and resolutions make it clear that these refugees have a legal right to return to their homes inside what is now Israel.

According to Amnesty International, the Israeli occupation of Palestine represents a period of “humiliation, discrimination and oppression, forced evictions, unlawful killings, arbitrary detentions, restrictions on movement and collective punishment for many Palestinians, with more than 1,000km² of Palestinian land... stolen to build illegal Israeli settlements, which continue to expand.” It is estimated that upwards of 50,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed and replaced by buildings on Israeli settlement for the 500,000 illegal settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Difficulties facing the Palestinians today

Palestinians face daily humiliation at the hands of Israel's occupation forces. This can take the form of the "Separation Wall" which cuts them off from their schools, hospitals and work places, to the hundreds of fixed and flying checkpoints scattered across the occupied West Bank, and having to show their identity documents to any Israeli soldier who demands to see them. It includes the demolition of homes and farms, and being banned from entering Jerusalem to pray in such significant sites as Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Those Palestinians with permits to work inside Israel face the daily prospect of having to queue from as early as 2am in order to get through the checkpoints in the Wall; this process can take several hours.

The Palestinian economy is in tatters, with rampant unemployment affecting almost every family. Economic woes also affect Palestinians in the refugee camps of Lebanon and Jordan, where various government policies mean that they are unable to own property or work in 70+ occupations (Lebanon) or face difficulties in education, health and welfare in what is a country with a high cost of living (Jordan).

Since 2006, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been subjected to a near-total land, sea and air blockade imposed by Israel and backed by Egypt. Unemployment in the enclave is at record levels and increasing numbers of people live on or below the official poverty line of $2 per day.

Conditions in the territory have been worsened by a number of Israeli military offensives; a great deal of the infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, and the blockade means that spare parts and building materials are not available to get things working again. Electricity is only available for a few hours every day and more than 90 per cent of the water is unfit for human consumption, according to World Health Organisation standards.

Hospitals have also been damaged, and medicines and medical disposables are in extremely short supply. Patients requiring life-saving surgery are more often than not prevented by the blockade from leaving Gaza for treatment in hospitals in Israel, Egypt or further afield. Students with places in overseas universities have often been unable to take up the study offers due to the imposition of travel restrictions.

The blockade is having a devastating effect on the population. The UN has said that the enclave will be “unliveable” by 2020 unless urgent action is taken immediately. Many people would argue that the Gaza Strip has already hit the cut-off point.

> "The Blockade of Gaza, which entered its tenth year in 2016, continued to undermine basic human rights and economic prospects, as well as the availability of essential services, exacerbating poverty and aid dependency."

Report of the UN Secretary-General, 30 August 2016

Mid-1990s – the first Charity Commission investigation

This major advance in the peace process set the context within which Interpal was established and sought to enhance the social and economic welfare of Palestinians in the region. Yet even in this encouraging ambiance, from the outset the trustees of Interpal were well aware of the scale of the challenges that they would face. From the moment of its registration as a charity in July 1994, Interpal had to develop its activities against the background of a difficult diplomatic and political environment, and considerable public scepticism about the Palestinian cause.

Interpal's principal initial task was thus to provide relief and development assistance to a beleaguered population which had lived through the harsh conditions resulting from over fifty years of suffering. This suffering had become pronounced during the latter stages of the First Intifada. The charity recognised that unemployment and malnutrition in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were on the increase, that the infant mortality rate had reached unprecedented levels and that it would need to develop a strategy to alleviate the consequential suffering. It also worked with the knowledge that there were significant numbers of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and that while they had similar problems, they also had the distinct needs of people living in forced exile. This, the trustees agreed, dictated that the provision of relief in Palestine's neighbouring states should be part of the charity's remit.

To put some perspective on the size of the task confronting Interpal and other NGOs working in the region, it is important to note that the estimated number of refugees across the camps in Jordan and Lebanon alone was just short of 3 million. In Jordan, the bulk of the refugees were living in crowded urban dwellings within UN-recognised camps while in Lebanon, Palestinians were denied any real assistance from the government.

In order to ensure effective aid delivery, Interpal identified four main areas of concern:

• The desperate need for food for the poor and under-nourished.
• Poor health facilities and a lack of medical resources.
• Desperate shortage of adequate educational provision.
• The growing need for rehabilitation facilities due to injuries and disabilities.

Interpal understood from the outset that its role was to support and help to rebuild the existing social and economic infrastructure within Palestine in order to ensure that local communities should one day be able to move away from a culture of dependency. It was always Interpal's purpose to provide multi-dimensional aid to ensure that every strata of Palestinian society benefitted from its humanitarian relief and development work. It has therefore been a key component of the charity's strategy to make use of local skills, produce and materials.

Contrary to expectations, the Oslo Accords led to a continued and heightened conflict in the region, with restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupying forces creating a desperate climate of deprivation and humanitarian need. Britain's House of Commons International Development Committee reported in the spring of 2004: "Rates of malnutrition in Gaza and parts of the West Bank are as bad as anywhere one would find in sub-Saharan Africa. The Palestinian economy has all but collapsed with unemployment rates in the region of 60-70% with many of those who are employed, dependent upon NGOs or international relief organisations for employment."

Interpal's commitment during this period was to help alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in need by focusing on their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. The trustees, however, recognised that effective aid delivery meant responding efficiently and effectively to the changing needs of the charity's beneficiaries and for this reason they initially provided mainly emergency relief, including medical supplies. This was extended during the Ramadan and Eid Al-Adha seasons to provide additional financial and moral support through the sponsorship of needy children, the disabled and poor families. Critical to this programme was the need to uphold the ethos of non-discrimination; aid was given solely on the basis of need, regardless of faith, ethnic and cultural background or, for that matter, the actions of beneficiaries' relatives, many of whom were often in prison.

It was in recognition of the worsening situation under Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories that the trustees resolved to expand Interpal's commitment to development relief. They noted that in the earlier phases of its work, much had been done to help widows and orphans, but that more needed to be done to help impoverished families and poor students, and to assist in the regeneration of depressed and disillusioned communities. This resulted in the development of more community-based and multidimensional projects, with resources deployed to assist and support local community organisations and service providers.

Projects included backing for local NGOs and the establishment and maintenance of welfare centres for the elderly; support for orphanages, kindergartens, schools and universities; assistance for basic developmental, vocational and specialised training programmes; funding for job creation programmes; and help to preserve the cultural and religious heritage of Palestine, with special regard for the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The establishment of close relationships with working partners on the ground in the early days was crucial to Interpal's ability to respond swiftly to emergency situations. When the Second ("Al-Aqsa") Intifada erupted on 28 September 2000, the charity was able to respond within hours, mounting an international campaign to raise funds to meet the immediate special needs of the Palestinian people, including the provision of emergency medical facilities, food and shelter. With huge numbers involved in clashes with the Israeli security forces, Interpal's local insight enabled it to launch a crisis appeal promptly. It duly established a fully operational emergency response unit which could provide medical care, fire rescue and control, and ambulance service support in collaboration with one of its international partners in the region. Financial support was also earmarked for the large number of casualties and victims of the conflict, including families who had lost their breadwinners. The project was so successful that it formed a blueprint which has been copied by many other emergency aid programmes and charitable organisations providing assistance to the needy in Palestine.

Interpal's establishment of the Al-Durrah Fund – named after twelve-year-old Muhammad Al-Durrah who was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers on 30 September 2000 in front of the world's media — was a recognition of the need for a specific focus on long-term support for child victims of the crisis.

Similarly, Interpal's One-to-One sponsorship programme developed into one of its largest ongoing humanitarian projects, providing a small monthly allowance to over 4,000 Palestinian orphans, needy children, disabled people and poor families. The programme had two primary goals: to provide essential humanitarian relief aid, and the provision of psychological and moral support to the most vulnerable in Palestinian society. The direct support from sponsors and donors continues to provide a ray of hope and a window to the world for the Palestinians whose lives it touches. Little gifts, letters or photographs from their sponsors are often a source of immense pride and pleasure to the sponsored children and families.

Operating in a difficult environment

In 1995 and early 1996, Israel suffered a series of suicide bombings. These led some media outlets to speculate that charities funding welfare projects in Palestine could – knowingly or unknowingly – be financing terrorism. Interpal found itself among those facing such allegations, despite its small size. In the mid-to-late 1990s, it was typically handling only around £1 million-1.5 million a year in donations.

Even where the accusations fell short of claiming that the organisation funded terrorism, they implied that Interpal was effectively providing a welfare scheme for the families of dead suicide bombers, simply because it provided support for single parent families, based on their need, as part of its assistance programme. Interpal noted that families which were without breadwinners, for any reason, were more likely to require charitable aid. Some critics even implied that by providing aid to any Palestinian children at all, Interpal was supporting the development of a future generation of suicide bombers.

As Carl Arrindell, a journalist at the UK's Islam Channel who has worked with Interpal, puts it: “If Interpal sponsored thousands of orphans in Palestine, out of which two or three were found to have a great uncle who was a suicide bomber then, to some, that made Interpal a supporter of terrorism. But Interpal's argument has always been the same as that of any doctor: that it would not discriminate against a child because of the actions of his or her relatives.”

However implausible most of the arguments against the charity were – particularly given the absence of any credible evidence to support the allegations of financing terrorism – the attacks still left their mark on Interpal's reputation.

Hence, in March 1996, little more than a year after Interpal had been launched, the organisation found itself the subject of what was to be the first of several investigations by the Charity Commission, the body charged with registering and regulating charities in England and Wales. This first inquiry was triggered by allegations that the charity funded Hamas and had connections to a number of former Hamas militants.

That first experience of undergoing Charity Commission scrutiny lasted for almost four months. Interpal staff knew that, because of its areas of operation, the charity was certain to attract interest from the authorities. From the outset, therefore, they had been prepared for the possibility of such an investigation. Even so, the inquiry still imposed huge pressure on the employees who had to sustain Interpal operations, while being subjected to intense media attention and dealing with the Commission's demands for information and special administrative arrangements.

On launching its investigation, the Commission effectively took control of Interpal's bank accounts. This complicated day-to-day management, because even routine transactions had to be signed off by the regulator.

The hostile tone of some media coverage at the time is well illustrated by an article that was published in the Daily Telegraph in May 1996, implying that the charity was run by Hamas activists who supported terrorist activities in Israel. In relation to Interpal, the newspaper's article — headlined "London fatwa backs suicide bombers" and published on 26 May 1996 — said:

"Apart from publishing its monthly magazine, Hamas activists in London also run the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund (Interpal), which raises an estimated £1 million a year. Israeli officials claim to have proof that money raised by the charity has been used to fund the training of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank. The fund is now under investigation by the Charity Commission."

These spuriously sourced and unsubstantiated assertions were later retracted. At the time, though, the story helped stoke perceptions that the Charity Commission investigation was based on hard evidence – implicitly, that there was “no smoke without fire” – even though this evidence was lacking.

During this period, Interpal was working in Lebanon, Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but it only received complaints from Israel, which referred to small charities assisting Palestinians as “underground organisations”. Founding trustee, Dr Essam Yousef, points out that, “In reality, these charities were very open. They had their own offices; the Israelis could examine them whenever they liked.”

The trustees were already well aware that in supporting Palestinians, Interpal was rendering itself vulnerable to attack by some supporters of Israel or sceptics concerned about possible terrorist funding. They knew that the charity would probably be held to standards different from those used to judge charitable organisations tackling other issues in other places and that, just because it was operating in Palestine, its routine activities would be questioned, whatever the reality might be.

Oliver McTernan, Director of the consultancy Forward Thinking, has a long track record of working on initiatives to bring opposing sides together in the Middle East and elsewhere. He says that it is hard to justify the idea that, merely by operating in the territories that a government rules, a charity is in some way supportive of that government. This has been a recurring accusation made against Interpal ever since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections and been the de facto government in the Gaza Strip.

"If, for example, being seen with the de facto leader of Gaza is seen as collusion, I think that's nonsense," he explains. "Any humanitarian organisation, working in a location such as Gaza, has to understand that its own security is provided by the de facto government. They only can do their humanitarian work because there's a whole network of people guaranteeing their safety."

According to Oliver McTernan, "Either you don't go in, or you go in and you work within the realities. And for me that's what Interpal has been trying to do. To work with the de facto local authority is not an endorsement of the political situation."

Over the years, Interpal has been well aware that it risked being accused of weak financial accountability by opponents, simply because it worked with the local Zakat Committees that oversee faith-based donations in the region. However, these committees are a pivotal and long-established part of Muslim communities; they provide a sort of local administrative hub for donations made as Zakat, the regular charitable giving that Islam expects the faithful to undertake. The committees provide a highly effective avenue for targeting this personalised form of aid and ensuring that the money is used effectively. It would almost have been perverse for a fledgling international charity to exclude the Zakat Committees from being partners.

Nevertheless, while Interpal worked with the Zakat Committees, it took care to ensure that these operations were documented properly, through unambiguous records that were in fact more detailed than the average charity might be expected to supply. "The Charity Commission was surprised," says Dr Essam Yousef. "Its staff could not believe how detailed our documentation was. We knew what sort of allegations would be made against us, so we had been very clean and honest. We told them that we didn't want them to have to come back time and time again."

The paperwork showed the precautions that Interpal had taken in order to make sure that financial allocations did actually go to the projects to which they had been assigned and were not at risk of being diverted elsewhere. CEO Jihad Qundil points out that Interpal was able to demonstrate that it only paid money across after the final reports and invoices were received. “We didn’t give money and then chase reports,” he explains. “That tells you we were working with partners who were very trustworthy and who, in turn, trusted us.”

Interpal would only authorise payments when its staff had seen invoices and evidence of payment to the end beneficiaries, which reduced risks to the minimum. This diligence extended to the day-to-day operations of the London office. Carl Arrindell recalls being ticked off for using the photocopier in the Interpal office unnecessarily, to ensure that as much money could go to the organisation’s charity activities: “I realised they were unbelievably serious, and because they were expecting to be scrutinised, there were duplicate copies of receipts for virtually everything they bought.” He holds the charity’s work in high regard. “I have worked with dozens of charities during my time with the Islam Channel, but I regard my time with Interpal as hugely significant in framing the purest understanding of the principal that charities are custodians of people’s wishes and intentions under the fifth pillar [of Islam].”

Jihad Qundil says Interpal was able to address all of the Commission's key concerns. “We answered the core issues for the Charity Commission and we answered all of the critics. They examined our literature for any sense of bias and looked into our operations and then put out a statement that said there wasn’t any bias; the Commission concluded that we were moved by altruism, not terrorism.”

The Commission also looked into the operations of the Palestine and Lebanon Relief Fund (PLRF), the charity that Dr Essam Yousef had founded prior to Interpal and which continued operating for several years in parallel with the newer organisation. Its paperwork was also extensive. “I put all of PLRF’s files into ten black sacks for them to take away. This surprised the Charity Commission official, who I think had expected just a few papers,” he says.

The Charity Commission published its findings at the end of May 1996 and issued a press statement. The outcome was a clear vindication for Interpal, with the statement affirming, “We found no evidence of any pro-terrorist bias, or indeed any bias of any kind.”

The Commission also stated: “It would be impossible, and inappropriate, for the charity to ensure that its funds only go to supporters of the Israelis in the volatile areas in which it works. They do however need to take every possible step to ensure that their donations only go to charitable purposes, helping the poor and needy. We are satisfied that they do this to the best of their abilities.”

In a later report on Interpal, in 2009, the Charity Commission described the 1996 inquiry as follows:

“The first inquiry into the Charity, in 1996, concerned allegations that the Charity funded Hamas and had connections to a number of former Hamas militants. The inquiry scrutinized the Charity’s financial controls and records and ran test checks on particular payments made by the Charity. It found no evidence of any donations that could not be accounted for or that were given for political reasons.”

Jihad Qundil recalls this 1996 episode as a character-building experience: “On a personal level it was testing, but we learnt from it and were strengthened.”

This early scrutiny from the Charity Commission also had its benefits for the operational side. Not only did it find that Interpal's activities were strictly charitable, but the Commission also provided advice on how Interpal could improve the day-to-day management of its fund-raising activities.

The charity had already set up procedures and a database that enabled it to trace the funds coming in, the names of the donors, their addresses and amounts donated. Copies would be made of cheques, and if the donation was made in cash, a note of that would be copied as well. That would then be linked to the child who would be the recipient of the aid, whose photo, birth certificate and other relevant details would also be included in the database. The details of the local Palestinian charity through which the aid was provided was also recorded.

"I thought we were doing a lot," says Jihad Qundil. "But the message from the Charity Commission was that we could do even more." One improvement suggested by the Commission, and which Interpal adopted, was to request photocopies of cheques once they had been processed by a bank.

Despite the rigours and distractions that this early investigation imposed on Interpal, the process would also stand the charity in good stead with the Commission in future years. It now understood the sort of issues that preoccupied the regulatory body and, for its part, the Commission could see that Interpal had pre-empted many of those concerns and was thus able to provide satisfactory answers to its questions.

"The fact that they came very early on, saw everything and understood how we worked – and that we understood the logic and objectives of what they were trying to achieve – meant we were able to get even stronger," Interpal's CEO points out.

Essam Yousef stresses that the Charity Commission could not ignore the allegations against Interpal, and has praise for the regulator's procedures at that time: "They had to look into them and do whatever they had to do. I admire them for this. All the time, they behaved like regulators, not prosecutors."

1997-2003: between Charity Commission investigations

The Charity Commission had found no evidence of any political bias in Interpal's activities in 1996. Interpal then went onto the front foot, challenging those who published what it felt were inaccurate news articles and trying to promote a more positive view of its work. It scored a major victory with the publication of a statement by the Daily Telegraph in November 1997, in which the newspaper withdrew the damaging allegations made in an article it had published in May the previous year:

“On 26 May 1996, in an article entitled ‘London fatwa backs suicide bombers’, we suggested that the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund (Interpal) was run by Hamas activists who encourage and support terrorist activities in Israel. We also reported claims which were being investigated by the Charity Commission that Interpal was used to raise money to fund the training of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank. We now accept that the Trustees of Interpal are not Hamas activists. We also accept that the Charity Commission’s investigations found there to be no evidence of any pro-terrorist bias in the charity or of any channelling of its funds towards the training of suicide bombers. The Commission concluded that the charity is a ‘well-run and committed organisation which carries out important work in a part of the world where there is great hardship and suffering’ and that Interpal takes every possible step to ensure that its donations go only to charitable purposes, helping the poor and needy. We withdraw the allegations that appeared in our article and apologise to the Trustees of Interpal for the embarrassment caused.”

Yet this episode was just one step in the struggle against misrepresentation. Lobbying against Interpal from within Israel and the US continued and would be reflected in periodic news coverage, to which the charity often had to respond. “We were very proactive,” recalls Jihad Qundil. “Whenever they wrote something, we would challenge it.”

The charity’s relationship with the mainstream media was by no means universally one of conflict, though. Nevertheless, it wasn’t easy. “The accusations were huge, and encouraged by political pressure from within Israel, but newspapers like the Financial Times were fair. They would come to us with questions based on talking to the Israelis; we would explain what we knew and then they would go back to the Israelis and come back with further questions. After this, they would have a better idea of the reality.”

Interpal was also proactive in other ways when defending its reputation and promoting its cause. The charity enabled broad access to its operations by funding and hosting visits by groups of politicians and other opinion formers and community leaders to see its projects on the ground.

Over the years, British Members of Parliament have made a number of trips to see Interpal-supported projects in Palestine and the refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The first of these took place in July 1998, enabling political representatives to see at first-hand how Interpal organised relief and support, and how its money was spent.

On that trip, MPs the late David Atkinson (Conservative) and John Austin (Labour) accompanied Interpal's Chair of Trustees Ibrahim Hewitt and Ghassan Faour, one of his colleagues on the board, for a visit to a number of projects and institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including hospitals, clinics, an orphanage, a residential care facility for the disabled, an Arab Women's Centre and the Islamic University of Gaza among others. The MPs also met members of the Zakat Committees central to charitable assistance in the region. On arrival at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Ibrahim Hewitt was going to be banned from entering the country until officials relented following the parliamentarians' intervention. It was at that stage that Ibrahim Hewitt found out that Interpal had been "banned" in Israel since 1996. "Despite this ban," he points out, "Interpal's money transfers were still being allowed through the Israeli banking system unhindered. If there was any genuine concern that charity money was being misused, wouldn't the Israelis have blocked such payments?"

The reactions of David Atkinson and John Austin to what they saw on the visit were very positive. A review of the trip drawn up for the British parliament concluded that:

"It was evident, both visibly and through discussion with those of the local community whose job it is to administer aid in schools, local adoption schemes and hospitals, that much suffering is alleviated through Interpal's involvement and endeavours in the region.

The delegation was impressed at the aid and assistance, both financial and otherwise, provided by Interpal to the refugees and wider communities in the areas visited... It welcomed the high level of administrative and financial transparency involved in the schemes operated by those to whom funding and assistance is made available."