Senior executives at one of Britain’s biggest Islamic charities privately warned that aid money they had sent to Gaza ‘very likely’ ended up funding Hamas and other terrorist groups, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Penny Appeal – which in its heyday had annual revenues of more than £25million and operated in more than 40 countries – is now the subject of a Charity Commission investigation.
Inspectors searched its £3.5million Wakefield headquarters earlier this year and seized thousands of documents.
The charity donated more than £350,000 to British organisation Programme for NGOs to deliver aid into Gaza following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – dispatching up to 25 trucks carrying food and humanitarian supplies through the Rafah crossing at the Egyptian border.
But alarm bells began ringing when updates on how the money was being distributed did not arrive – with a whistleblower telling the MoS that insufficient ‘due diligence’ checks had been carried out.
Minutes of an emergency meeting held on April 4, 2024, leaked to this newspaper, warn that the funds could have fallen into the hands of ‘Hamas and other terror-related entities operating in Gaza’.
Executives voiced concerns that local entities involved in distributing the aid ‘could very likely be a front for extreme and terror-related activity in Gaza that we should have no part in’.
The charity received no list confirming who had received the aid – with the minutes recording that repeated requests for such lists had been ‘ignored.’
Adeem Younis (pictured), who founded Penny Appeal, stood down as head of trustees in 2019
Programme for NGOs told bosses that what happened to money and goods once they entered Gaza was not its responsibility.
Among the documents seen by the MoS are receipts showing thousands of pounds of donated funds were spent inside northern Gaza, including on ‘media services’ – raising fears that British donations could have ended up in the pockets of Hamas-linked organisations, since the terror group and its members are embedded in Gaza.
Despite a resolution for the group’s trustees to voluntarily contact the Charity Commission and inform the regulator, it is believed that angry staff later contacted the Commission as whistleblowers.
The charity’s founder, British-Asian millionaire Adeem Younis, stood down as head of trustees in 2019 – with the Charity Commission later finding he had personal interests ‘affected by the charity’s contract’ with an Islamic broadcaster.
Last night Ahmed Ibrahim, director of Programme for NGOs, dismissed claims that Penny Appeal money may have ended up in the hands of terrorist groups inside Gaza. He added that he did submit updates to Penny Appeal, and its bosses even visited his company’s warehouses in Cairo, Egypt.
Penny Appeal said in a statement: ‘The donation was made following due diligence, production of a project budget, and Penny Appeal received a project completion report with receipts in June 2024, detailing the expenditure on the ground.
‘We are confident the funds were used as intended, and are enormously proud of the work we deliver to support vulnerable communities around the world.’
The Charity Commission confirmed its regulatory compliance investigation into Penny Appeal was ongoing.
