Hamas Front Group Euro-Med Announces Closure of Gaza Office
The Hamas-linked NGO blamed Israel for its Gaza closure, but the move follows a wider retreat amid further findings on its Hamas ties and a European terror-financing case
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When the Hamas front group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor announced the closure of its Gaza office on June 16 after nearly 15 years of operations, it claimed that an Israeli campaign of “threats, defamation, and punitive measures” had made field operations untenable.
Euro-Med framed each contraction as a response to Israeli hostility, even as the timing aligned with mounting scrutiny of the organization’s alleged Hamas ties and a European terrorism-financing case that pointed back to its founder, Ramy Abdu.
A Multi-City Retreat in Three Weeks
The scale of Euro-Med’s retreat was broader than the Gaza announcement alone suggested. On May 27, after Israeli authorities moved to bar nearly 40 Euro-Med staff members and affiliates from entering Israel and the Palestinian territories, the organization announced what it called “exceptional and involuntary measures.” Those measures included staff reductions, suspension of its central office in Geneva, closure of its offices in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, a reduction in field activity, and a shift toward virtual operations.
The institutional retreat began in the weeks after Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism released a May 13 report arguing that Euro-Med operates as a “multi-channel mechanism” for Hamas-linked influence operations, combining legal advocacy, media campaigns, and digital activism.
Italian Case Files Pointed Back to Euro-Med’s Founder
The Israeli ministry report arrived while a separate legal proceeding in Europe had already produced its own disclosures. In December 2025, Italian authorities arrested nine people linked to Hamas-financing charities based in Genoa and Milan, on charges of funneling approximately €7–8 million to Hamas.
Reporting on the Italian case also identified Mohammed Saleh Ismail Abdu, Ramy Abdu’s brother, as a figure prosecutors allegedly linked to the alias “Abu Khaled.” Prosecutors allege he transferred €462,700 to Hamas and sought to arrange meetings in Doha with then-Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh. The network allegedly operated through the Palestinian Solidarity Charity, or ABSPP, whose president, Mohammad Hannoun, was sanctioned by the United States as an Italy-based Hamas financier accused of using the charity to bankroll Hamas’s military wing.
The Tribunal of Genoa’s pre-trial detention order, documented by NGO Monitor, named Ramy Abdu as Euro-Med Monitor’s founder and listed his place of residence as Istanbul, Turkey — not Geneva, where the organization is officially registered and where it has now suspended operations.
HonestReporting further found that a file on the ABSPP’s server, believed to reference Abdu, showed more than $1.1 million received and approximately $1.2 million transferred outward through the network. The Istanbul listing is notable because U.S. sanctions materials have separately identified Hamas-linked financial activity involving Türkiye. Euro-Med Monitor has not publicly addressed the court filing or the Istanbul residence listing.
A Predecessor Entity Already Designated Terrorist
A detail that received little attention when the current scandal broke: according to NGO Monitor, Euro-Med’s leadership traces back to a closely related predecessor entity, Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, which Israel banned in 2015 as an “unauthorized association” and later designated under its Counter-Terrorism Law.
That history allowed Euro-Med Monitor to operate internationally under a separate name while a closely related predecessor entity carried an Israeli terrorism designation, a record that NGO Monitor says went largely unrecognized in mainstream coverage of the organization.
Euro-Med’s Response
Euro-Med’s response to the mounting scrutiny has followed a consistent pattern: recast the allegations as part of an Israeli-orchestrated defamation campaign. Its June 16 statement dismissed the accusations as “baseless political accusations,” while its May 27 announcement claimed the organization was facing “a systematic Israeli campaign of disinformation, defamation, incitement, and direct and indirect threats.”
Board chair Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton, published an open letter calling the Hamas allegations “false” — without addressing the Italian court proceedings, the predecessor organization’s terrorism designation, or the Istanbul residence disclosure. Neither Falk’s letter nor any Euro-Med statement has directly engaged this documented record.
The practical consequences of the reframing strategy have been significant. HonestReporting said it documented 104 citations of Euro-Med as a credible source across 28 major outlets — including CNN, the Associated Press, and The New York Times — between March 2025 and May 2026.