GAZA (JNI) — UK authorities on Friday arrested a senior executive at a British charity for extradition to the U.S. on charges of providing material support to Hamas.
Muhammad Yusuf al-Hasna, Global Director for the Croydon-based Al-Khair Foundation, stands accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of “work[ing] closely with Hamas’s senior leadership to deliver supplies, food, funding, and other materials to terrorists under the guise of humanitarian aid.” An FBI indictment alleges Hasna transferred cash to Hamas and coordinated with the group’s senior members to divert supplies to Hamas-controlled warehouses in Gaza.
The indictment names Hasna’s alleged point man in Gaza: Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas politburo who, in the years before the war, served as Minister of Social Development in the group’s Gazan governing apparatus. The document also cites intercepted text and voice messages between Hasna and Hamad discussing the transfer of supplies and cash, as well as a ledger entry recording $700,000 transferred.
The Al-Khair Foundation, Hasna’s charity, signed a memorandum in 2015 with UNRWA, the UN agency which runs most Gaza schools, on “working together to provide education to besieged children in the Gaza Strip.” Described by UNRWA as “the third largest Muslim charity in the UK,” Al-Khair contributed about $750,000 to the project.
The FBI alleges that after the October 7, 2023 attacks, Al-Khair doubled its annual fundraising from $40 million in 2023 to over $80 million in 2024, then reached $100 million last year.
Among its flagship Gaza projects, Al-Khair oversaw the production of canned meat, with a special focus on delivery for the Eid al-Adha holiday. A September 2025 Al-Jazeera profile of the effort says the charity coordinated across continents to source the meat, set up dedicated production lines, and obtained a dispensation from Muslim clerics for the use of preserved meat in lieu of live animals for the Eid al-Adha sacrifice ritual. Al-Khair reported delivering more than 2.5 million tins of meat.
But in a widely viewed video, Gazan independent journalist Jihad Khadra documented Al-Khair canned chicken offered for purchase in Gaza markets, despite bearing a clear “not for sale” label.
Al-Khair faced prior accusations of terror links before Hasna’s Friday arrest. In 2024, Kharon, a Denver-based financial intelligence firm founded by former U.S. Treasury Department officials, reported on Al-Khair’s partnership in Gaza with Azzam Aid, a nonprofit founded by former Afghanistan-based militant Hudhayfa Azzam. Azzam Aid’s fundraising appeals include images and quotes of Hudhayfa’s father, Al-Qaeda progenitor Abdullah Azzam.
Another local Gaza administrator for Al-Khair, Husam Mansur, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024. The Israeli military said Mansur was a platoon commander in Hamas’s “internal security forces.”
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If UK authorities extradite Hasna for prosecution in New York, his trial may provide a window into the web of relationships among international charities, UN agencies, and the Hamas leadership in Gaza. At one point in the communications cited in the indictment, Hasna asks his Hamas interlocutor for help setting up a conference in Turkey. “I know that you have contact with the United Nations, the Red Cross, and details like that,” Hasna writes. “Is it possible to share their numbers with me?”
The indictment also records a series of pro-Hamas statements Hasna posted to social media beginning in 2014, suggesting his sympathies with Hamas were no secret from his employers. The Al-Khair foundation appointed him as global director in Jan. 2023, according to a post he made at the time on LinkedIn. Per the indictment, his prior work experience includes eight years as director of the Gaza humanitarian affairs coordination office of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an umbrella group of 57 Muslim-majority states.
Khadra, the independent journalist who documented Al-Khair aid diverted for commercial sale in Gaza, hopes Hasna’s arrest is the start of a wider reckoning. In a Facebook post yesterday, he wrote: “For many people, [Hasna] was the most prominent face, but the issue doesn’t start or end with a single person … Everyone who raised funds in the name of Gaza must be subject to accountability, to explain to the public where the money went.”
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