Israeli non-profit offers to help Brits move to illegal settlements, investigation finds

An Israeli non-profit has been filmed offering to help UK citizens move to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of Israel’s ongoing theft of Palestine.

Shivat Zion (Return to Zion) was set up in 2022 as “the only Aliyah NGO in the UK officially recognised by the Jewish Agency for Israel” to assist British Jews move to Israel. All of the organisation’s staff are Europeans who emigrated to Israel.

During a Zoom call filmed by undercover reporters at Declassified UK, the group boasted that it could obtain UK tax subsidies for its work. It also described living near “Arabs” — Zionist code for indigenous Palestinians — was the only downside.

You’re next to the Arabs. You’ll hear their mosques,” he was recorded saying. “But apart from this, it’s a great living standard.

🚨 Secret filming EXPOSES Israeli Settler Group

We went UNDERCOVER to expose an Israeli operation to help Brits move to West Bank

WATCH here
👉 https://t.co/OOns7SJKS0 pic.twitter.com/qNii1Uz6J5

— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) April 13, 2026

Supposedly, the Starmer government considers Israel’s expanding land theft in the West Bank to be a “flagrant violation of international law”. However, the government is apparently allowing Shivat Zion to claim gift aid, despite it not existing as a UK-registered entity.

Israeli non-profit’s actions are ‘deeply’ disturbing

Shivat Zion tells its supporters that it can claim tax refunds on donations through a separate charity, UK Toremet, presumably because the group is claiming the exemption for religious organisations despite Zionism being a political ideology.

UK Toremet told Declassified that it has no “active” relationship with Shivat Zion and hasn’t given any grants to the organisation in the last 12 months”.

The media outlet went on to add:

Declassified can’t verify this claim, but donors to Shivat Zion would have been under the impression that their money would go via UK Toremet in order to benefit from Gift Aid.

Unequivocally so, since Shivat’s fundraising campaign promised that donations from the UK are eligible for gift aid.

But after Declassified contacted the organisation for comment, mentions of charity and tax were removed from its website. The Charity Commission, which had originally approved the scheme, later launched an investigation and said it had issued guidance to UK Toremet after three separate compliance cases relating to Palestine since 2016.

We issued the charity’s trustees with statutory guidance and an action plan, which warned it must comply with the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.

This is similar to the slap on the wrist the commission issued after its investigation into the nakedly political, pro-Israel activities of the so-called Campaign against Antisemitism.

Human rights lawyer, Daniel Machover, told Declassified he was “deeply disturbed” by its findings and said it was “inexcusable” to claim that these donations were eligible for gift aid.

Israel and its supporters are always the victims

Like other signatory nations, the UK is under the International Court of Justice’s obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

Challenged about its activities, the group’s Netherlands-Israeli CEO, Shraga Evers, resorted to foul abuse. With typical Israeli arrogance and victimhood, Evers referred to undercover anti-Zionist Jew, Emily, who drove the investigation, as a ‘kapo’ — the term for Jews who collaborated with the Nazis.

We assist new Olim [migrants] regardless of where they choose to settle and provide support that falls under social affairs activities of which new immigrants are part.

Furthermore, while I do not feel any need to apologize for living as a Jew in Judea — neither to you nor to the aforementioned individual — it further underlines the deceptive manner in which elements of the anti-Semitic lobby, together with a handful of helpful modern-day Kapos, are operating.

Emily described the insidious and carefully crafted manipulation of ‘aliyah’ events:

It was quite terrifying how appealing it was. If I wasn’t so steadfast in my anti-Zionism, how easily one could be persuaded to do this.

But for Palestinians, life under occupation and the malignant spread of illegal settlements is brutal. While Gaza has suffered genocide, Palestinians in the West Bank have been subjected to intensified settler attacks, including murders, crop burning and poisoning or destruction of water sources.

Prize-winning Palestinian peace activist, Issa Amro, who is frequently attacked by the settlers, said they “get quality life on the expense of the basic rights of the Palestinians”.

Efrat is a settlement – and to live there, it’s a war crime.

Palestinians are not even allowed to travel on the road leading to their own historic village near the Efrat settlement, promoted by Shivat Zion.

Featured image via Unsplash/ Aaron Ovadia