West Bank Israeli settlers fundraise online for military equipment

Heavily armed and openly coordinated across a range of online platforms, networks of connected fighters have emerged to secure and develop Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.

Drawing on open-source intelligence (OSINT) methods, the findings of our ten-month-long investigation flesh out how Israeli settler militias in the occupied West Bank fundraised through NGOs more than $3.75 million since 7 October 2023. 

While the total amount of donations to these settler militias is likely to be much higher, it supplements more than NIS 47 mn ($12 mn) allocated to the Israeli Ministry of National Security in its 2024 budget for these militias. 

Some of the most violent settlements receive aid from Canada, the US and the UK for the purchase of military equipment. All this was made possible via the internet and gaps in nonprofit and online platform regulatory enforcement across borders.

Sanctions imposed on Israeli settlers earlier this year seem to be largely ineffective in paralysing the financial lifelines and international outreach of the broader settler movement.

To analyse Israeli settler militia activity on Telegram, The New Arab (TNA) Investigative Unit utilised Open Measures, a research tool which archives dangerous online activity, to isolate ~4,400,000 Telegram posts between 1 January 2023 and 15 June 2024 from across 86 different channels related to Israeli settlement of Palestine. Additionally, we searched key terms across a range of Israeli fundraising websites. A sample of the data can be found here.

Crowdfunding for guns

Right-wing Israelis use the geo-political term “Samaria” (Shomron in Hebrew), with etymological roots tracing back to the Bible, to describe the northern part of the occupied West Bank. Yossi Dagan leads the Samaria Regional Council, which governs 31 Israeli settlements. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law.

Less than a month after the 7 October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel, Dagan posted on Facebook that the council had purchased “hundreds of Roni” kits that turn semi-automatic pistols into carbines, as well as more than 300 rifles, for the establishment of settlement militias. 

“We raised the funds from the Samaria friends in Miami, New York and Paris. In recent years, we have invested in advocacy in parliaments and creating friendships with Jewish communities around the world. Now they open their hearts and donate many millions to the defence of Samaria settlements”, read Dagan’s post.

The head of the council solicited donations to an organisation called Shivat Zion Israeli Charity Trust. His plea for donations claimed, among other things, that the funds would be for “tactical gear for our civil first responders”. The Shivat Zion Trust has a fundraiser campaign on Israeli crowdfunding platform Givechak on behalf of two Regional Councils, including Samaria's. At time of publication, it has raised some NIS 3.27 million ($865,000). 

The 2023 financial statements for Shivat Zion Trust specify line items for support for “kitot konenut” (armed rapid response squads that operate in settlements). According to 2023 filing documents acquired by The New Arab, their top donor was a Russian businessman, followed by the New York branch of the European Jewish Association. Their third highest donor was the US-based Central Fund of Israel, which is reportedly involved in purchasing Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem, in order to resell them to settlers.

On 12 October 2023, Israeli news website Arutz Sheva confirmed that the Samaria Regional Council purchased Israeli weapons with international donations. “Although the Samaria Regional Council is already considered an approved entity for the purchase of firearms, a matter which is strictly controlled in Israel, the Council has requested that the Ministry of National Security expedite the required approvals for the deal. Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has approved the request and ordered his office to work to speed up the process”, read the report.

Dagan never clarified if any nonprofit entity was used as a conduit for weapon purchases; however, the timing and wording of his posts raise questions about his compliance with donor regulations.

Since 7 October 2023, the West Bank has witnessed a surge in settler violence against Palestinians.

The Givechak fundraiser for the Shivat Zion Trust raises money specifically earmarked for Rehelim, a settlement under the Samaria council jurisdiction, where on 28 October 2023 a settler reportedly shot dead a Palestinian olive harvester.

The same fundraiser also partners with the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, another council made up of West Bank settlements, which includes the Shilo settlement. In August 2024, according to an Israeli preliminary investigation, settlers from Shilo reportedly participated in raids and torched the Palestinian village of Jit, while the Israeli military “stood there next to them, saw everything and did nothing”.

The fundraiser even has a subgroup for Mount Hebron Regional Council, home of multiple sanctioned settlers and farms. Three donations, each for NIS 60,000 ($16,000), are specifically earmarked for the now sanctioned Mount Hebron Fund.

 The New Arab (TNA) Investigative Unit sought comments from Yossi Dagan, the regional councils of Samaria, Mateh Binyamin and Mount Hebron, the Shivat Zion Trust, the Central Fund of Israel and Givechak. No response was received in time for publication.

Nevertheless, the use of international donor money to purchase rifles for settlement militias stands as an exception to the rule. Much more easily found are multinational donors funding non-firearm tactical equipment, while the Israeli state supplies the weapons.

Ineffective sanctions?

Yossi Dagan recently travelled to the United States to encourage action against sanctions on settlers. Among others, he met with Anthony D’Esposito and Claudia Tenney, two Republican members of the House of Representatives who expressed support for his cause.

Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, the US has imposed West Bank-related sanctions on 23 Israeli entities and individuals. These include settlers and their farms, but also organisations involved in crowdfunding for sanctioned individuals. They have been targeted for a wide array of actions against Palestinian civilians, including directly and indirectly engaging in acts of violence, threats, seizure and destruction of property.  

Yet the sanctions appear to be applied inconsistently and without targeting pro-settler Israeli officials. Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer who has submitted multiple requests for sanctions to be imposed on Israeli entities, drew a parallel with US sanctions applied on Bosnian officials in 2023. “The UK and US imposed sanctions on almost all the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs in Republika Srpska because they are threatening the stability of the Dayton Accords and peace in the Balkans. They should do the same in Israel and Palestine. They could do it; it’s not like reinventing the wheel”, Mack told TNA.

TNA contacted Congress members Anthony D’Esposito and Claudia Tenney, but no response was received in time for publication.

“From state-backed militias to state militias”

In its advisory opinion published on 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the United Nation’s top court, found that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem “have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”, that the West Bank is part of a sovereign Palestinian state and that Israel must evacuate all its settlers from this occupied territory. Despite international law, Israel considers only unauthorised settlements (“outposts”) to be illegal.

The ICJ considered that the settlements constitute a breach of article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial discrimination and apartheid. 

"'We raised the funds from the Samaria friends in Miami, New York and Paris. In recent years, we have invested in advocacy in parliaments and creating friendships with Jewish communities around the world. Now they open their hearts and donate many millions to the defence of Samaria settlements', read a post by Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council."

The ambiguous status of the paramilitary units conducting the annexation is evident in situations where reservists, both active and inactive, defend settlements. Recently-passed Knesset legislation now allows kitot konenut to receive the same benefits as Israeli military reservists. 

Michael Omer-man, Director of Research for Israel-Palestine at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a Washington-based nonprofit, told TNA that the kitot konenut began as something akin to armed civilian neighbourhood watch groups. However, since October 7, they have developed formal roles through the state where they are often paid, assigned to their home areas and given military uniforms. Omer-man characterised this shift as one from “state-backed militias to state militias”.

The activities of these groups occur in the midst of a surge in rhetoric by settler officials such as Finance Minister Smotrich, who has stated his desire to annex the West Bank “first on the ground, then through legislation”. Israeli Minister of National Security and West Bank settlement resident Itamar Ben-Gvir has sought to mobilise a militia-style national guard, as part of efforts to target Palestinian civilians and militants. He has also relaxed a wide variety of firearm regulations. 

Some of the militias have their own tax-deductible fiscal entities in Israel, while others rely on the nonprofit status of crowdfunding platforms. Though crowd-funding remains an important avenue of international coordination, Omer-man noted that the majority of the support these militias receive, whether financial or otherwise, still comes from the Israeli state itself.

Blurred boundaries between civilian and military

Scholars and researchers have discussed the blurring that occurs between the categories of “civilian paramilitary” and “state combatant” as a result of the particular nature of the Israeli reserve system and surrounding political apparatus. 

In Israel, the kitot konenut militias are framed as defensive, counter-terror entities. Settlements appoint and fund kitot konenut in the West Bank, but it is predominantly the ministry of national security and the Israeli military that arm them.

These settler militias were established in 1959 after the Suez Crisis, but have come more to the fore with the onset of the war on Gaza. Since then, a large number of additional weapons and munitions have been distributed to the kitot konenut. Israeli daily Haaretz reported that no Arab community in Israel was eligible for the state sponsored weapons handouts. 

Since Israel has a conscript military where most of the Jewish population performs a mandatory service term of some kind, kitot konenut can be unsurprisingly composed of off-duty reservists.

According to the United Nations, in nearly half of all settler attacks documented in 2023, Israeli forces were either accompanying or actively supporting the perpetrators.

On 11 July 2024, the US announced it was imposing sanctions on Isaschar Manne, a settler based on the South Hebron Hills. A few days later, Betzalel Taljah, a reserve Company Commander in the “Judea Brigade”, posted on Facebook about a party with Isaschar Manne and Israeli soldiers. Taljah wrote: “Today it is sanctions on a farm, tomorrow on a settlement, and in the end they will also sanction the municipality of Jerusalem. We must not let this happen.”

According to his own website, Taljah owns Talia Farm, which is an outpost on the South Hebron Hills. The farm is advertised on Facebook and on the website of Israeli NGO Hashomer Yosh, which is also under US sanctions.

The New Arab contacted Betzalel Taljah seeking comments on the content of this article. He responded only to ask if we believe “Jews have the right to live in the state of Israel” and did not articulate his response any further.

TNA also contacted Isaschar Manne and Hashomer Yosh but no response was received in time for publication.

‘Fight with your money!’

While The New Arab was researching settler fundraising networks, Israeli investigative outlet Shomrin published its own findings on a related, albeit different, nonprofit called Shivat Zion Lerigvy Admata. According to Shomrin, this Shivat Zion NGO operates under the name of Artzenu (Hebrew for ‘Our Land’). 

According to its website, “Artzenu works to reinforce and deepen settlement endeavours in various areas of the country by improving and strengthening the economic, security and functional resilience of these agricultural settlements.” 

By early July 2024, a fundraiser for Artzenu on Israeli crowdfunding platform Peach had raised over NIS 9 million ($2.6 mn) for kitot konenut. They raise their funds through a US-based organisation called the Ne’eman Foundation.

The fundraiser invites international donors to contribute any amount by credit card, PayPal or Bit (the payment app of Israeli bank Hapoalim), for the purchase of a wide range of tactical gear: ceramic bulletproof tactical vests, thermal security cameras, security drones and medical equipment. This is despite prohibitions against possession of drones in the West Bank, which are generally applied only to Palestinians, according to Israeli human rights NGO B’tselem. 

Artzenu fundraised to train or supply equipment to militias from some of the most violent settlements, including Kiryat Arba, Ma’aleh Levona, Bat Ayin, Shilo and Avigayil. It did so in partnership with the Hineni Forum, an effort to build civilian militias by raising funds for over 620 groups.

Artzenu also provided agricultural volunteers to the now sanctioned Moshe’s Farm.

On their Facebook page, Artzenu raised money explicitly for the establishment of standby classes among armed settlers. The group resorted to crowdfunding to finance settlement expansion not only in the occupied West Bank, but also in the occupied Golan Heights. 

Also on Facebook, the organisation questioned whether any Palestinian residents can really be considered innocent civilians and shared a video in which a reservist declared: “We are not leaving until Gaza is wiped out.” In the same post, the reservist is described as a “champion”.

At the same time as launching the tactical equipment fundraising campaign on Peach, Artzenu circulated a Google Form on Facebook asking people to clarify whether they were raising money for kitot konenut or an official Israeli military unit. 

The group maintains a presence on numerous Israeli crowdfunding platforms. It raises money through JGive and Charidy, and has a profile on IsraelGives. 

Multiple settler organisations are currently raising money via IsraelGives, which journalist Jason Wilson outlined as having intensive donor risk for involvement in active official and paramilitary warfare in Palestine.

Jalal Abukhater, Advocacy Manager at 7amleh, a Palestinian digital rights organisation, told TNA that settler groups regularly fundraise using Israeli platforms, including for settlers who commit acts of terror. 

"​​Settlers use online platforms to support the settler enterprise, typically local websites that look like Paypal or GoFundMe but are technically hosted in Israel”, said Abukhater. He noted that fundraisers were also launched to support convicted settlers who committed crimes against Palestinians, such as the Dawabsheh family, who were burned to death in the village of Duma in 2015.

We contacted IsraelGives, asking whether crowdfunding for the benefit of violent settlers was in line with the platform’s mission and values. An IsraelGives spokesperson told TNA that “while it is true that, as a registered nonprofit organisation, Artzenu would be eligible to work with our platform, so would all of the 40,000 nonprofits registered in Israel, including organisations opposing the goals that this particular organisation supports.” 

The IsraelGives spokesperson added that “upon review of their account with us, Artzenu has not received donations through our platform since February 2024, and has not run an active campaign since May of 2023.”

Commenting on Jason Wilson’s work, the spokesperson highlighted how the article “brought to our attention a number of fundraising campaigns that violated our terms of service. They were promptly removed from our platform”.  

In 2022, Artzenu/Shivat Zion Lerigvy Admata received national and international donations for more than NIS 3 million ($890,000). Between 2021 and 2024, it has also received over NIS 7 million ($1.96 mn) in Israeli government subsidies.

According to the Shomrin investigation, the chairman of the organisation is Yonathan Ahiya, a resident of the Jordan Valley and a well-connected figure from the ruling Likud party. Since he took over at the helm of Artzenu in 2020, the group’s budget increased from NIS 600,000 ($175,000) to 2.3 mn ($684,000) in 2022.

Artzenu has similarly sought to take over water resources and turn natural springs in the Jordan Valley into settler tourism destinations. An Artzenu spring is located outside of a large settlement farm in the village of Ad Deir near the border with Jordan. The Google location lists the Artzenu website and shows pictures of their logo on signage. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in April 2023, in this small West Bank community, settlers “broke into private Palestinian land and destroyed crops and farm property”.

We contacted PayPal, asking them about their role in facilitating settler activities in the Occupied Territories. TNA also emailed Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and Google (YouTube’s parent company), inquiring about their involvement in platforming settler contents. No response was received in time for publication.

Abukhater, the advocacy manager at 7amleh, argued that Meta failed to apply “fair and equal policies” across Palestinian and Israeli users. He told TNA that, since Meta removes content associated with an undisclosed list of dangerous entities, which disproportionately targets Palestinians, “it has an obligation to do similar things with Israeli settlers, whose activities are illegal under international law.”

Other settler organisations have raised funds on JGive. The Rujum-Zionist Entrepreneurship did so to provide tactical equipment to settlers. As the Rujum donation pages note, donations to Rujum are tax deductible in Israel and the US.

Another organisation, Keren Ahiezer Achisamch, claims that its principal charitable aim is “to help families that can't manage themselves financially due to low income of one or both of the couple”. Inspection of their webpage on JGive, however, reveals that they are crowdfunding for a “volunteer emergency civilian security squad” for a project called “Protecting Our Home!”. The webpage provides cost estimates for various pieces of tactical equipment, such as Raytheon ELCAN Specter day sights for AR-15s, thermal rifle scopes, tactical vests and thermal drones. 

We contacted JGive, asking whether fundraising for the purchase of military equipment was in line with the platform’s philanthropic mission. Rimone Hersch, who handles US donation inquiries at JGive, told TNA that the website is “used by recognized and licensed NGOs that comply with our regulations and with the laws of the State of Israel”. 

Hersch added that “JGive complies with all Israeli and international financial regulations as it continues to serve as the primary charity platform aimed at increasing social impact and charitable giving in Israel and the Jewish world.”

We also contacted the Rujum-Zionist Entrepreneurship and Keren Ahiezer Achisamch, but no response was received in time for publication. Shortly after we contacted them, Keren Ahiezer Achisamch altered the page of their fundraisers for kitot konenut to remove references to settler militias and the type of equipment they are crowdfunding for.

Unlawful charities?

According to the Keren Ahiezer Achisamch fundraiser, “all donations are tax-deductible in Israel, in the USA (JGive-Friends of Asor Fund USA Inc.), in Canada (Mizrahi Canada Foundation), and in the UK (UK Toremet Foundation)”.

US-based nonprofit Dawn MENA has previously called for sanctions against the owners of JGive - Israeli-registered Asor Fund and US-registered JGive-Friends of Asor Fund USA Inc. - for fundraising for Tzav 9, the extremist Israeli group that was responsible for blocking aid destined to Gaza. The US sanctioned Tzav 9 in June 2024.

In January 2024, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) submitted a report to the UK Charity Commission entitled, ‘Enabling Genocide Fundraising in the UK’. This 600-page-report documents the ways in which UK-registered charities, including UK Toremet, reportedly contravene Charity Commission regulations by facilitating fundraising for the supply of military equipment to the Israeli army. 

TNA contacted the UK Charity Commission seeking comment on these reported violations of its code of conduct. A commission spokesperson responded: “Earlier this year, we opened a regulatory compliance case to assess allegations that UK Toremet Limited had funded the Israeli Defense Force, contrary to charity law. After engaging with the charity’s trustees, we found no evidence to support the allegations.”

The spokesperson conceded, however, that they “did identify improvements that were required to the charity’s governance and have issued the charity with an Action Plan to address this”.

Lastly, the representative of the commission emphasised that, “while promoting the efficiency of the armed forces of the [British] Crown is a charitable purpose in law, it is not legally charitable to support the army or militia in another jurisdiction.”

In May 2024, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a UK-based legal group, submitted to the Charity Commission its separate request for investigation of UK Toremet’s activities, among other UK-based nonprofits. The request was centred on how extremist Israeli organisations like Tzav 9 were apparently able to crowdfund through Toremet.

In September, the ICJP published a summary of the status of the complaints they had filed against UK charities: as of August, after the commission had issued Toremet with its undisclosed “action plan”, the Hashomer Yosh settler outpost was reportedly using the same charity to fundraise for its activities. The US sanctioned Hashomer Yosh in the same month. 

In its summary, the ICJP concluded that “given UK Toremet’s continuous provision of services to Israeli organisations that are engaged in unlawful behaviour, [...] this action plan was either insufficient or not implemented by the charity.”

In Canada, where the Mizrahi Canada Foundation is registered, it is also not legally charitable “to support the armed forces of another country”.

Just One Chesed, another Israeli nonprofit which is also registered in the US, went further than other organisations, insofar as it fundraised for its own “Rapid Response Initiative” to supply the Gush Etzion and Efrat settlements with “tactical, medical and defense gear”. Equipment included L3Harris Next Generation Aiming Lasers whose sales are typically restricted to active US military and law enforcement. At time of publication, the campaign had raised $622,368.

The New Arab contacted the UK Toremet Foundation, the Mizrahi Canada Foundation, Artzenu/Shivat Zion Lerigvy Admata, the Ne’eman Foundation, Just One Chesed, Charidy and Peach seeking comments for this story. No response was received in time for publication. 

We also emailed the Attorney General of Ontario and the New York State Attorney General, whose responsibilities would respectively include investigating nonprofits like the Mizrahi Canada Foundation and the Central Fund of Israel. In our correspondence we asked, to no avail, whether it was legal for these NGOs to raise and donate funds for the purchase of Israeli military equipment. 

Lastly, TNA contacted the Israeli ministry of justice, which is in charge of regulating local charities, and the Office of Israel's State Attorney, the body that should investigate nonprofits. We asked about measures being taken to ensure NGOs were not fundraising for the purchase of military equipment in illegal settlements. The ministry of justice refrained from commenting and recommended that we file a complaint to determine whether the case fell under its jurisdiction. We received no response from the state attorney.

Digital land theft in Palestine

While nonprofits and crowdfunding predominantly exist for social good, they can also be employed as part of a paramilitary settlement effort to raise funds on an international scale.

The extent of integration with national tax codes, such as those of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, raises further questions about the complicity of these states - not to mention individual donors - in the ongoing illegal annexation of Palestine. 

Although it is often illegal to use nonprofits to support foreign armed forces and paramilitaries, nested structures of contributions with various levels of plausible deniability remain hidden amidst the chaos of hybrid warfare. 

While sanctions introduced since 7 October 2023 attempt to address this, they continue to focus mainly on settlers, rather than the implicated platforms and nonprofits. The likes of Facebook, Google, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp continue to be exploited as mechanisms of modern warfare. Additionally, organisations use a range of mostly Israeli fundraising platforms to enable the ongoing displacement of Palestinians. 

Upstream opposition to these nonprofit war funding mechanisms has emerged in recent months. One example is the Not On Our Dime Act, which proposes to stem the tide of tax-deductible donations from New York-based nonprofits to Israeli settlements. Due to opposition in the New York State legislature, however, the bill has stalled, with fundraisers for settlers and the Israeli army continuing to receive tax benefits.

Sumaya Awad, Director of Strategy at the Adalah Justice Project, one of the groups campaigning for the Not On Our Dime Act, told TNA: “Our economy and foreign investments should reflect our values as a state, and subsidizing genocide and illegal settlement expansion is absolutely inconsistent with a state that claims to be proud of being progressive.”

Speaking with The New Arab, another proponent of the bill, New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, described it as an attempt “to bridge the gap between what is explicit in our law and what is implicit — that charitable organisations should not fund war crimes".

Pondering on how to expand existing international restrictions, Eitay Mack, the Israeli human rights lawyer, pointed out that “for the US government, it would be very easy to notify the few popular [Israeli] crowdfunding websites that they could be sanctioned themselves, if they were found to violate US sanctions.”

The Biden administration, however, remains reluctant to toughen sanctions regimes against settlers and their enablers. Asked whether Washington would consider sanctions against pro-settler Israeli officials and crowdfunding platforms, a US State Department spokesperson responded: “We don’t preview potential sanctions actions.”

As US presidential elections loom on November 5, a Donald Trump victory could translate into even fewer constraints for settlers. The previous Trump administration declared settlements not to be in violation of international law. 

And as the war in Israel, Palestine and now Lebanon continues to escalate, armed settler groups are increasingly emboldened to violence, while remaining largely unrestrained in their international crowdfunding efforts.

Editing, fact-checking and additional reporting: 

(The New Arab):  Investigative Researcher/Journalist Anas Ambri and Investigative Editor Andrea Glioti 

Jerusalem-based Jessica Buxbaum

For questions, comments and complaints please email Andrea Glioti andrea.glioti@newarab.com or Anas Ambri anas.ambri@newarab.com.

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