More than £800,000 belonging to a British humanitarian charity is being held by the Charity Commission after concerns were raised over its funding of a Gaza organisation alleged to have links to Hamas.

We Care Foundation, a registered charity, is the subject of a statutory inquiry into its trustees’ decision-making and payments. Its bank accounts were frozen by the regulator in May 2024.

Figures published by the Official Custodian show that it received £819,494.20 on behalf of the charity during 2025–26.

After £18,737.76 was paid to an interim manager appointed in July 2025, a total of £800,756.44 remained in the Custodian’s hands as of March 31 this year.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) raised further concerns with the Commission in January 2025 after discovering that We Care had funded Qawafil Al-Khair Association, a Gaza-based organisation described as a “Hamas institution”.

The Charity Commission told UKLFI the following month that the allegations would be considered as part of its inquiry.

Qawafil was designated a terrorist organisation by Israel’s defence minister in December 2024 under the country’s anti-terrorism legislation.

The organisation was headed by Mansour Rayan and Ali Al-Mughrabi, both of whom had served prison sentences in Israel for terrorist offences before being released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.

Rayan was convicted of murdering Israeli civilian Yoram Sakuri in 1994 and wounding his wife.

Following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, he reportedly praised the attackers and shared footage of Israeli hostages being assaulted and paraded through Gaza.

Al-Mughrabi was linked to a Hamas cell responsible for several attacks, including the 2002 suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Moment Café, in which 11 people were killed and dozens injured.

He was reported to have transferred funds, obtained vehicles for attacks and photographed suicide bombers. He was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Khan Younis in January 2025.

A 2016 Al Jazeera profile said Qawafil’s team included 17 former Palestinian prisoners released in the Shalit exchange. Its publicity has referred to beneficiaries as the wives and children of “martyrs” and praised their sacrifice.

Documents from Hamas were released by the IDF on X in November 2025 which showed that funds from Qawafil were used for providing food parcels to members of the Hamas military wing in Gaza.

A UKLFI spokesman said: “The fact that more than £800,000 of We Care Foundation’s funds remain under the control of the Official Custodian demonstrates the seriousness of the Charity Commission’s intervention.

“Charities operating in conflict zones must carry out rigorous due diligence to ensure that charitable funds do not reach terrorist organisations or support the glorification of terrorism.

“We hope the Commission will now establish precisely where We Care Foundation’s money went, whether the trustees complied with their legal duties and what further regulatory action is required.”