European Hamas Support Network Establishes Another Front Group

The web­site of an orga­ni­za­tion itself tied to Hamas sup­port activ­i­ty report­ed in Octo­ber last year on the found­ing of a new Euro­pean umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion called the Euro­pean-Pales­tin­ian Ini­tia­tive for Nation­al Action (EPINA). Accord­ing to the arti­cle:

On Mon­day, 19 Octo­ber 2020, more than 140 Pales­tin­ian per­son­al­i­ties through­out Europe announced the estab­lish­ment of the “Euro­pean-Pales­tini­ans Ini­tia­tive for Nation­al Action,” via a press state­ment, a copy of which was received by Pales­tini­ans Abroad (Pal­Abroad). The state­ment report­ed that the ini­tia­tive was found­ed in light of the chal­lenges fac­ing the Pales­tin­ian cause, includ­ing the deal of the cen­tu­ry, the annex­a­tion plans, and Arab nor­mal­iza­tion with the Israeli occupation’s state, which prompt­ed more than 140 Pales­tin­ian fig­ures to dis­cuss the impor­tance of work­ing to uni­fy efforts and per­form duties man­dat­ed by this dif­fi­cult stage. […]As the state­ment was released, Mr. Majed Al-Zeer‎, Pres­i­dent of Pales­tini­ans in Europe Con­fer­ence, on behalf of Ger­many, was elect­ed as the Gen­er­al Coor­di­na­tor for the first six months on the first meet­ing of the Coor­di­na­tion Office, held on Thurs­day 15 Octo­ber 2020, and Omar Faris was elect­ed to be the First Deputy on behalf of Poland, while Adnan Abu Nass­er was elect­ed as the Sec­ond Deputy on behalf of Aus­tria. More­over, being the cap­i­tal of the Euro­pean Union, the city of Brus­sels was cho­sen to be the main cen­ter for the ini­tia­tive’s activity. 

Read the rest here.

Avail­able evi­dence sug­gests that EPINA is, in real­i­ty, yet anoth­er Euro­pean Hamas-sup­port group. For exam­ple, Majeed Al-Zeer has been iden­ti­fied by an Israeli NGO close to the country’s mil­i­tary intel­li­gence as one of a group of Hamas activists who sought refuge in Britain in the 1990s but who do not admit links to Hamas. The same source reports he has been involved in many Hamas fronts, includ­ing the Pales­tin­ian Return Cen­tre (PRC) and the Euro­pean Cam­paign to End the Siege of Gaza (ECESG).

Adel Abdal­lah (aka Adel Dogh­man), one of the founders of an orga­ni­za­tion iden­ti­fied by the US Trea­sury as con­trolled by the leader of Hamas in Aus­tria, released a sim­i­lar state­ment on his Face­book account in which he announced the found­ing of EPINA. Accord­ing to his state­ment, the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als are some of the mem­bers of the EPINA coor­di­na­tion office:

• Amin Abu Rashid (iden­ti­fied by Israeli intel­li­gence as the chief Hamas fundrais­er in West­ern Europe)

• Adel Abdal­lah (see above )

• Mazen Kahel (Trea­sur­er of the Comité de Bien­fai­sance et de Sec­ours aux Pales­tiniens (CBSP), French mem­ber of the Union of Good, a Hamas fundrais­ing operation.)

• Mohamed Hanoun (known to have been Pres­i­dent of the Asso­ci­azione Benefi­ca Di Sol­i­da­ri­eta’ Con Il Popo­lo Palesti­nese (ABSPP), the Ital­ian Union of Good member.

The above indi­vid­u­als have addi­tion­al ties to oth­er Hamas-sup­port groups.

The Hamas char­ter says that it is “one of the wings of the Mus­lim Broth­ers in Pales­tine” and soon after Hamas took over the Gaza strip, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood rep­re­sen­ta­tives trav­eled to Gaza from Egypt through the new­ly-opened bor­der to review Hamas mil­i­tary for­ma­tions.  A Hamas jour­nal­ist has acknowl­edged the role that the “inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” has played in pro­vid­ing funds for the pur­chase of weapons, and Hamas is known to be sup­port­ed finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly by the glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.