Efforts by far-right Israeli activists to block trucks carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via Israel have intensified of late. Last month, a driver was attacked – even though he was not even heading to Gaza – his truck was torched and its contents emptied. Not only does such illegal activity exacerbate tensions between Israel and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, but it is also worth remembering that Karim Khan, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, cited Israel’s alleged use of starvation as a method of warfare as one of the main reasons for seeking arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

A Shomrim investigation has revealed that funds raised for a primary group involved in recent efforts to halt humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza come through The Jewish Truth, a far-right organization advocating for the forced transfer of Israel’s Arab citizens and Palestinians in the West Bank. The WhatsApp groups where activists plan their operations are filled with links to donation websites and calls for people to start their own crowdfunding campaigns. Among those active in the groups are well-known figures from the extreme fringes of the Israeli right, such as Baruch Marzel, whose wife is a board member of The Jewish Truth. Efforts to block aid convoys are organized by a group calling itself the Lo Nishkach Front (Hebrew for “We shall not forget”), rather than by the NGO itself. When asked for a response by Shomrim, Marzel replied, “No comment.”

Organizers send messages in these WhatsApp groups, calling on members to block aid trucks as they make their way toward the border crossing and to unload whatever they are carrying. For example, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Lo Nishkach sent an urgent message saying that aid trucks had been spotted in the Arad area of southern Israel and were making their way to Gaza. Any activist in the region was urged to show up. On that occasion, their efforts were unsuccessful. In another example, which happened last week, one of the organizers of the group wrote, “two convoys of trucks for Hamas are planning to set out today and are already at the stage of loading equipment. Tarqumiyah crossing – 30/40 trucks. Allenby crossing – 150 trucks.”

At the same time, it seems that the groups’ organizers are careful not to divulge information about their planned activities too far in advance. In one case, they quickly deleted messages calling on members to start blocking private vehicles that might also be used to take humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A Shomrim investigation shows that telephone numbers belonging to a number of Knesset members – and even one minister and one deputy minister – appear among the members of the WhatsApp groups in which plans are made to block aid trucks. It should be noted, however, that these elected officials did not necessarily ask to be added to the groups and are not active in them.

Also appearing as members of these groups, alongside civilians, are a number of soldiers in the IDF. Shomrim discovered that some of the soldiers who are members of the groups do not even bother to conceal their identities and their profile photos sometimes show them in uniform. Shomrim reached out to one of them, whose profile photo is a recent image taken of him in uniform in the West Bank city of Hebron, to ask why he was a member of the group. In response, he replied that he is barred from “expressing any political opinions.”

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in response that “we are not aware of these claims and if we receive further details, we will look into them and deal with them accordingly.”

Meanwhile, it appears that efforts by the Israeli security forces to enforce the law are having precious little success in deterring these activists. In fact, they often joke about their close relations with the authorities. For example, when one activist was arrested recently, another wrote in a WhatsApp group that the police officers “have already become his friends.” In another case, members of one group praised soldiers who took no action against them: “Two female soldiers from the Home Front Command were put on trial after they refused an order to use force to remove protestors who were blocking trucks carrying supplies to Hamas in Gaza,” one of the messages said.