The Nation - Israeli agent ties charity to terrorists - The intelligence official testifies the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation funneled money to Hamas.

An Israeli intelligence official testifying under an assumed name in a closed courtroom told a federal jury here that a now-defunct Islamic charity in the United States was part of a global fundraising network that helped finance terrorism by the Palestinian group Hamas.

The assertions by an Israeli Security Agency officer, identified as "Avi," are pivotal to U.S. government claims that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and five of its former officers knowingly funded extremists in the guise of charity. The allegation is denied by the defendants, all but one of whom is a U.S. citizen.

During his first day on the witness stand, Avi testified that Holy Land and other fundraising groups surreptitiously raised vast sums of money abroad that were funneled to Hamas through a network of local charities in the West Bank and Gaza.

He said that those charities, known as zakat committees, provided not only the lifeblood of Hamas' social work but helped support families of suicide bombers, Israeli prisoners and others.

"This network was formed by design; it wasn't created out of the blue," he said under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. Elizabeth J. Shapiro.

The intelligence agent testified that Israel had seized evidence from overseas charities and gathered other information supporting his claims, including interviews with Hamas officials.

In its 2004 indictment, the government alleged that Holy Land, originally located in Los Angeles, effectively supported terrorist attacks overseas by contributing millions of dollars to nine zakat committees or other facilities controlled by Hamas.

On Wednesday, the Israeli agent was questioned about four of those charities including the Jenin Zakat Committee. He said that it was run by at least eight Hamas activists, four of whom were members of its military wing. One was convicted in Israel of a 2002 suicide attack that killed eight.

Holy Land officials have long argued through their attorneys that they rejected terrorism and provided only charitable funding.

They said the were the targets of harassment by the Israeli government and Jewish groups that predated the indictment and were angered by U.S. government orders that closed the foundation shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.