Netherlands admits to paying terrorist who killed Israeli girl

According to the Jerusalem Post, the killers in question are official members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated as a terrorist group by the European Union. The murderers planted an improvised explosive device in the West Bank, which later detonated, killing Shnerb.

The Dutch government previously denied accusations of having any kind of connection to this or any other terrorist group, however a recently surfaced photo proves otherwise. Dated to 2017, a photo posted on the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah’s Facebook page features Abdul Razeq Farraj, one of the men charged with the girl's murder standing alongside Dutch officials.

NGO Monitor, which uncovered the photograph, found that the group photo includes the Netherlands' Head of Cooperation in Ramallah, Henny de Vries alongside a Palestinian-run organization called the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), which has been a recipient of Dutch public funds since the year 2013. The Dutch representative reportedly pledged $20 million in Dutch taxpayer dollars to the organization in 2013-2021.

Abdul Razeq Farraj is the UAWC's Finance and Administration director, who was indicted on four counts involving the terrorist attack that killed the 17-year-old. He is also charged with holding a position a terrorist organization, the PFLP.

Farraj has since been indicted on four separate charges, the most serious of them being aiding in attempt to cause death in the attack on the Shnerb family which resulted in the loss of their daughter on August 23 of last year. Her father and brother, Rabbi Eitan Shnerb and Dvir Shnerb, were also injured in the attack.

Farraj is also charged with being a recruiter for the terrorist organization, who knew of its terrorist attacks as they were being planned, including details about the attackers' guns and explosives.

According to an NGO Monitor spokesperson, the group has “long warned about direct ties between senior UAWC individuals and PFLP and how dangerous it is to entrust such organizations with distributing humanitarian aid."

Following the revelation of the photograph, the Dutch government has immediately moved to freeze funding indefinitely to the UAWC pending an independent investigation. Unfortunately, to date, almost all of the pledged money has made its way through.

On Tuesday, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Development Minister Sigrid Kaag told the Netherlands parliament that the country paid part of the salaries of terrorists involved in killing Shnerb last year.

The ministers' remarks stemmed from questions posed by conservative members of parliament about their foreknowledge of the UAWC's ties to terrorism. Kaag claimed to be ignorant of these connections, but JPost reports that the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel and the UK-based Lawyers for Israel previously reached out to lawmakers in The Hague in 2019 to highlight these UAWC's ties to the PFLP.