A charity linked to Israel’s military and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank has removed four fundraising campaigns from its home page. Stephanie Tran with the update.
The Chai Charitable Foundation, which reported $19.1m in tax-deductible donations in the 2025 financial year, earlier told MWM that it does not fund the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or illegal settlements.
However, until yesterday, Chai’s home page hosted fundraisers for organisations that publicly state they provide direct support to IDF soldiers, as well as campaigns tied to settlement communities in the West Bank.
Those campaigns included fundraisers for One People for Israel and Brothers for Life, both of which describe their work as supporting IDF soldiers, as well as appeals linked to illegal settlement communities in Tekoa and Hebron, located in the occupied West Bank.
Although the fundraisers were removed from the site’s homepage, the links to donate to the IDF and West Bank campaigns remain live.
Chai, registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) since 2017, directs the bulk of its funding overseas. Its 2025 financial report shows $15.39m in grants for use outside Australia, compared with $1.62m spent domestically.
Benevolence?
Chai is endorsed as a Public Benevolent Institution (PBI), a designation reserved for charities whose dominant purpose is the direct relief of poverty, suffering or distress.
PBIs receive the most concessional treatment under Australia’s charity law, including exemption from income tax, eligibility to receive tax-deductible donations, and access to fringe benefits tax concessions not available to most other charities.
The charity is overseen by a three-member board comprising Joseph Gestetner, Robyn Goldhirsch and Yehuda Devries, according to filings with the ACNC.
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Open in new tab IDF fundraisers
Among the campaigns removed from Chai’s homepage was a fundraiser for One People for Israel, an organisation founded in 2023 by Ari Briggs, a Sydney-born man who emigrated to Israel. One People for Israel says its mission is to deliver “life-saving gear” including helmets and ceramic vests to IDF soldiers, and states that it works directly with senior IDF logistics officials to procure equipment to military specifications.
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A letter dated 14 October 2023 from the IDF acknowledges that Briggs was providing supplies to Israeli military units. In public statements, Briggs has described One People for Israel as a private initiative able to “cut through red tape” to deliver equipment more efficiently than the military itself.
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Friends of Smotrich
Briggs is also director of Regavim, a pro-settler organisation that has campaigned against Palestinian communities in the West Bank. Regavim was founded in 2006 by Yehuda Eliahu and Bezalel Smotrich as “response to a September 2005 Supreme Court case brought by Peace Now against the illegal outpost of Harasha in Samaria.”
In 2015, the ABC identified Briggs as a leading figure behind efforts to demolish the Palestinian village of Susiya, which was receiving Australian government aid at the time.
Source: Facebook
Briggs did not respond to a request for comment.
Chai also hosted a fundraising campaign for Brothers for Life, an Israeli organisation that supports wounded IDF soldiers.
Raising funds for West Bank settlements
Chai has also hosted fundraising campaigns for settlement communities in Tekoa and Hebron, both located in the occupied West Bank, which Australia considers illegal under international law.
According to UN statistics, 1049 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October 2023. The vast majority (98%) were killed by Israeli forces using live ammunition and air strikes.
Tekoa has been a focal point of settler expansion and violence in recent years. Since October 2023, at least 100 Palestinians have been forced out of their land in and around Tekoa, amid a sharp escalation in settler attacks.
According to Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, Tekoa and its surrounding outposts have expanded more than any other settlement area, accounting for approximately 4,500 of the estimated 40,000 acres of land taken across the West Bank since October 2023.
A 2025 investigation by The Guardian found that Airbnb and Booking.com have enabled Israeli settlers to profit off the seizure of Palestinian land across the West Bank, with listings describing Tekoa as a “quiet, respectful and diverse, residential community”.
Hebron, meanwhile, is one of the most heavily militarised cities in the occupied West Bank and a long-standing flashpoint for violence. Several hundred Israeli settlers live in fortified enclaves in the heart of the Palestinian city, protected by Israeli troops, while tens of thousands of Palestinians face severe movement restrictions, road closures and military checkpoints.
According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem,
violent conduct by settlers has become routine in the area.
“Over the years, systematic abuse and harassment of Palestinians by settlers has become an established part of life in Hebron. As often as not, the abuse takes the form of severe violence. Documented instances include physical assault, stone-throwing, vandalism of shops and doors, theft, verbal abuse, attempts to run Palestinians over and several cases of gunfire. In one such case, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed.”
Chai responds
The Chai Charitable Foundation told MWM that it “does not provide equipment, funds or other support to the IDF or any of its units. The Chai Charitable Foundation does not support any activities that are affiliated with entities on DFATs list of sanctioned entities, including those based in the West Bank. Regular checks are made to ensure that funds are not made available to entities on DFAT’s sanctions list.”
They stated that they employed “an overseas Compliance Officer who oversees the onboarding, vetting and monitoring of our overseas partners” to ensure “that the purposes being advanced align with our mission and status as a registered charity in Australia”.
“We are committed to the external conduct standards issued by the ACNC and the DGR conditions regulated by the ATO,” the Foundation said.
Chai did not respond to detailed follow-up questions about its relationship with One People for Israel or the settlement campaigns that were removed from its site.
Revealed: Australian taxpayers subsidising the IDF, illegal settlements in Israel
Stephanie is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.