A British charity is funding a religious school at the heart of expansion plans for the illegal Israeli settlement in the Palestinian city of Hebron. Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron sent nearly £200,000 to the school between 2019 and 2024, according to accounts filed with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Approval of new dormitory
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, 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 Palestinians
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. Hagit Ofran from Peace Now said: “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. 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 stated that Israel has imposed apartheid in the occupied West Bank, including Hebron.
Donations and legal concerns
In 2023, Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron donated £58,200 to the school and claimed more than £2,000 in gift aid from HMRC, according to its accounts. The charity says on its website it is not registered for gift aid. In 2024, it sent £21,360. The donations appear to contravene the charity’s own deed of trust, which refers to educational work “in the state of Israel” with no mention of Palestine. The British government formally recognised the state of Palestine last year.
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 donated at least £28m to Israeli settlements in recent years. The Guardian understands the commission passed details to the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit, but no investigation is under way.
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.
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 the roof. Israeli soldiers 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.”
