Channel 11 reported last week that 700 million shekels had secretly been transferred to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel NewsNational Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir blasted the government Saturday night for funding the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) despite Israeli denials, and demanded an urgent discussion with the prime minister on the matter.“I strongly opposed the transfer of any aid to Gaza, while our hostages are languishing in Hamas tunnels and our heroic fighters are operating in the Strip,” he wrote in his missive, reiterating the view he and other right-wing members of the Coalition have held since the beginning of the war sparked in late 2023 by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists murdered 1,200 people and abducted 251, including many dead bodies.“However, even according to the approach of those who support the transfer of aid,” he continued, “it is inconceivable that the State of Israel would finance, from the taxes of its citizens, and from the tax money of the residents of the Gaza Strip, food and supplies for the population that participated en masse in the massacre on October 7, and rejoiced when our brothers and sisters were slaughtered.”The missive followed a Channel 11 report last week that in the beginning of May, a few weeks before the GHF began giving out food boxes in Gaza, the government approved the transfer of NIS700 million to “the defense establishment,” deliberately not specifying which agencies or offices would receive the money.According to the media outlet’s sources, its destination was the recently-established GHF aid NGO, with the vagueness of the wording meant “to transfer the money with the fewest footprints possible, among other reasons to prevent public criticism,” the report said.Ben Gvir confirmed the report, saying that on May 5, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had brought a proposal for funding “an ‘urgent security need,’ without specifying what that need was,” and without it being on the agenda in advance, he said.“It appears that the discussion was held towards the end of the meeting when a significant number of ministers had left, and even then the issue was not discussed,” he charged, and “it has become clear that this is humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer.”Israel has officially denied directly funding the new group, although almost as soon as it started operating late last month, Opposition leader Yair Lapid told the Knesset in the form of rhetorical questions that the government was its main backer.“Is the money of the Israeli taxpayers the source of the funding of the humanitarian aid in Gaza?” he asked. “Is it possible that the Israeli security agencies were sent by the prime minister and finance minister to move government money out of the country so that it would later return to Gaza as humanitarian aid,” he continued, through the establishment of “two straw companies…SRS and GHF?”Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) is a private American firm that is providing security to GHF in the field, and was founded around the same time as GHF, with the legal paperwork reportedly done by the same lawyer.SRS had also provided the men who checked cars flowing back to northern Gaza during the six-week ceasefire earlier this year, to ensure that no weapons were being smuggled.Lapid had actually urged the government to take credit for the move if it was true, so Israel could be lauded for trying to help the Gazans instead of being repeatedly slammed for causing a humanitarian crisis there.Reuters reported Saturday that Israel has asked for $500 million in U.S. funding for GHF as it believes that by breaking Hamas’ ability to steal aid at will as it has done until now, is the key to destroying its ability to rule Gaza.The post Ben-Gvir demands probe into alleged Israeli funding of Gaza aid appeared first on World Israel News.