JERUSALEM: Prosecutors on Thursday (Feb 5) filed costs in opposition to the brother of the pinnacle of Israel’s home intelligence company for offences together with “aiding the enemy in wartime”, over the alleged smuggling of cigarettes into besieged Gaza.
Israel controls the entry of all items and folks into the Palestinian territory, the place humanitarian circumstances stay dire regardless of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas which got here into impact on Oct 10.
Bezalel Zini, the brother of Shin Guess chief David Zini, is charged together with different defendants with “aiding the enemy in wartime, performing transactions in property for terrorist functions, acquiring one thing by fraud below aggravated circumstances, and taking bribes”, the justice ministry stated.
“A central class of prohibited items smuggled into the Strip was tobacco and cigarettes, which have put a complete of lots of of thousands and thousands of shekels into Hamas’s coffers because the begin of the warfare,” the ministry added in a press release.
Bezalel Zini, a reservist within the Israeli navy, is suspected of smuggling roughly 14 cartons of cigarettes into Gaza on three events, for which he acquired 365,000 shekels (round US$117,400).
Two different defendants had been indicted together with Zini on Thursday.
