A British charity, Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron, has been funding a religious school at the center of expansion plans for an illegal Israeli settlement in the Palestinian city of Hebron. The charity sent nearly £200,000 to the school between 2019 and 2024, according to accounts filed with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Expansion Plans and International Agreements
Construction of a new dormitory for the school was approved in June after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unilaterally broke a decades-old international agreement on control of Hebron, giving Israel planning authority. The expansion will increase the population of one of the most extreme Israeli communities in the occupied West Bank, and the only one built in the heart of a Palestinian city.
“We want British charities to fund peace, not to fund obstacles for peace. This is very wrong,” said Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights defender from Hebron and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements. “The students at this yeshiva are very aggressive. A new building will mean more violence towards Palestinians, more restrictions, more Israeli military presence.”
Impact on Palestinian Residents
Israel has built extensive systems of militarised separation to isolate several hundred settlers inside Hebron from the city’s 230,000 Palestinian residents. Palestinians are barred entirely from some streets, and walls and gates divide communities. “For this yeshiva to exist, thousands of Palestinians have already lost their shops, their housing and their daily livelihood in the heart of a Palestinian city,” said Hagit Ofran from Peace Now. “The new dormitory is a significant development because they are adding more settlers in Hebron, the most extreme settlement, where apartheid is everywhere.”
International and Israeli leaders, including former US President Jimmy Carter, former Mossad head Tamir Pardo, and former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, have said Israel has imposed apartheid in the occupied West Bank, including Hebron.
Funding and Legal Concerns
The Hebron Yeshiva seeks funding in other countries that consider settlements in occupied Palestine illegal, offering donations “with receipts” in France and Canada. An Israeli crowd-funding platform, IsraelGives, has also facilitated millions of dollars in funding for settlements from US residents. In 2023, Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron donated £58,200 to the school and claimed more than £2,000 in gift aid from HMRC. The charity states on its website it is not registered for gift aid. In 2024, it sent £21,360 to the school.
The donations appear to contravene the charity’s own deed of trust, which refers to educational and charitable work “in the state of Israel,” with no mention of Palestine. The British government last year formally recognised the state of Palestine, on territory which includes Hebron.
The charity was one of 32 identified in a letter sent to the Charity Commission by Labour MP Melanie Ward on 1 June, stating they had donated at least £28m to Israeli settlements in recent years. The Guardian understands the commission passed the letter to the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit, but no investigation is under way.
Government and Regulatory Response
On 9 June, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in parliament that “charity systems are abused to funnel support to illegal settlements” and that “some evidence suggests that rules are being broken.” She said the Charity Commission had been tasked with investigating links to settlements. The commission said it shared Ward’s concerns but noted “this remains a complex and contentious issue, which touches on wider legal principles about charities’ right to operate… in parts of the world in which there may be conflict, contested jurisdiction, or lawlessness.”
Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron provides a UK account with Barclays Bank for donations. A Barclays spokesperson said it could not comment on individual clients but “does have policies and procedures in place to meet its legal and regulatory obligations – including appropriate due diligence and financial crime controls for charity clients.”
The charity’s contact email was the professional account of trustee Ari Bloom, a partner at law firm Solomon Taylor & Shaw. The firm’s switchboard number is listed as the charity’s phone contact, and it is registered to the same north London address used by the law firm. Contact details on the Charity Commission website were changed after the Guardian contacted the firm and Bloom for comment.
Violence and Military Presence
The current yeshiva building and expansion are at the edge of the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron. Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence, said students throw stones at Palestinians from their roof. Israeli soldiers, who outnumber settlers, have turned rooftops of private Palestinian homes into military posts to guard the yeshiva complex. “If communities fund that dormitory, they are funding more violence, funding the next wave that will bring death to Palestinian families and Israeli families,” Weiman said. “Everything that happens in Hebron first, happens elsewhere afterwards.”
