Registry · POLI.TA

Does Bank Hapoalim support Israel?

Support documentedupdated 2026-09-26

Yes — Bank Hapoalim has documented support for Israel on record, including $25,692,000 in donations. Every claim below links to its source.

Filed under: Banks & financial companies · Companies that support Israel

Background

Bank Hapoalim is an Israeli institution, so the question is not whether it "supports Israel" in the abstract but what it has actually done that is documented. Three strands are on the record. First, its wartime relief for Israeli customers — a NIS 750 million interest-free bridging fund, deferral of NIS 17.8 billion in loan and mortgage payments, and fee and mortgage waivers for reservists and residents near Gaza — part of which the Bank of Israel required of all Israeli lenders and part of which the bank added on its own, at an estimated cost of up to NIS 420 million. Second, third-party findings about its lending in the occupied West Bank: the UN OHCHR database lists it, and Norway's sovereign wealth fund excluded it in August 2025 over settlement-construction guarantees. Third, a donation record that only the Hebrew and Arabic press carried: the NIS 100 million Poalim LeTkuma fund for the Gaza envelope and the north, set up five days after 7 October 2023 and fully paid out by February 2026; NIS 119 million of donations in 2024 on Calcalist's reading of the bank's own report, inside a wider NIS 278 million of donations and customer benefits that year; emergency money to Magen David Adom, United Hatzalah, NATAL, ERAN, ZAKA and three southern hospitals; help procuring basic equipment for IDF soldiers; and a scholarship fund in its eighth year. Almost all of it originates in the bank's own announcements, which Hebrew and Arabic outlets carried with little separate reporting, and Calcalist's May 2025 review of giving by the Tel Aviv 125 companies warned that some corporate donations that year doubled as marketing. One documented episode pulls the other way: in March 2024 the bank blocked its payment processor from passing on donations — more than NIS 3 million had been raised — for a memorial project for a soldier of the Sharvit family killed in Gaza, because the money was destined for a Jordan Valley farm run by his brother, who is under US sanctions; the bank told the Tel Aviv District Court that moving funds to sanctioned parties could be treated as helping to circumvent international sanctions and would expose it to penalties and legal risk abroad. One claim we could not verify: we found no evidence that Bank Hapoalim underwrote Israel Bonds or the State of Israel's international war-bond offerings — the documented underwriters of the $19.4 billion of Israeli government bonds sold between October 2023 and January 2025 were Western investment banks. Israeli banks' financing of the state runs through the domestic bond market and their own balance sheets, which is not the same thing and is not documented here as a specific transaction.

Times of Israel (Nov 2023 — deferrals) OHCHR — A/HRC/60/19 database Norges Bank Investment Management — exclusions BankTrack / PAX (Profundo) — underwriters of Israeli government bonds Calcalist (24 Mar 2024 — donations for a memorial project blocked over US sanctions) Calcalist (28 Mar 2024 — the bank's response to the Tel Aviv District Court) Calcalist (19 May 2025 — giving by the TA-125 companies, and its marketing component)

Timeline of documented support

2024202520262023-10 — In-kind support: IDF soldiers and their families; residents of the Gaza envelope and southern communities left without a homeIn-kind support2023-102023-10 — In-kind support: Israeli reservists, evacuees and businesses near Gaza (bank customers)In-kind support2023-102023-10 — Donation: Magen David Adom, United Hatzalah, NATAL, ERAN, ZAKA, Access Israel, and the Soroka, Barzilai and Assuta Ashdod hospitalsDonation2023-102023-10 — Donation: Communities of the Gaza envelope and the Hevel Tkuma regional councils, and later communities in the northDonation2023-102023-11 — In-kind support: Bank Hapoalim customers affected by the warIn-kind support2023-112024 — Donation: Israeli populations hit by the war — residents of the Gaza envelope, residents of the north, wounded soldiers, reservists, small-business owners and studentsDonation20242025-08 — Operations in Israel: Israel (domestic banking operations)Operations in Israel2025-082025-08 — Operations in Israel: Building contractors constructing apartment buildings in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (bank guarantees)Operations in Israel2025-082025-09 — Operations in Israel: Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem (banking and financial services)Operations in Israel2025-092026-03 — Donation: Bank Hapoalim customer families whose homes were damaged in Zarzir, and northern residents needing emotional supportDonation2026-032026-08 — Donation: 120 students in Israel, through the Chinuch LePsagot (Education for Excellence) associationDonation2026-082026-08 — Donation: The HeChalutz association and the Merkaza Tzafon – Kiryat Shmona association, for Hermon Square in Kiryat ShmonaDonation2026-082026-09 — Operations in Israel: Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan (construction financing, municipal banking, settler-tourism sponsorship)Operations in Israel2026-09

Documented support

TypeDateAmountRecipientSources
Operations in Israel2025-08-15—Israel (domestic banking operations)
Bank Hapoalim is an Israeli bank, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and is Israel's largest lender. It earned record profits through the war years: NIS 2.5 billion ($740 million) in the second quarter of 2025 alone, up 14% year-on-year, driven by a 15.1% rise in financing income and an 8.2% jump in fees. The Times of Israel reported that Israel's biggest banks came under scrutiny for the gap between their soaring wartime gains and the finances of ordinary Israelis. This entry records what the bank is and where it operates; it is not a donation.
Donation2023-10-12$25,300,000Communities of the Gaza envelope and the Hevel Tkuma regional councils, and later communities in the north
On 12 October 2023, five days after the 7 October attack, Bank Hapoalim announced the "Poalim LeTkuma" (Poalim for Revival) fund: NIS 100 million (about $25.3 million at the Bank of Israel rate of 3.958 shekels to the dollar on 12 October 2023) of the bank's own money, decided by its then chairman Reuven Krupik and run by the bank's social-banking division. A public committee chaired by Maj. Gen. (res.) Amram Mitzna, with Prof. Yifat Bitton, Keren Terner Eyal and Sigal Moran, first met in January 2024 and set the fund's priorities in three areas: education, emotional and community resilience, and economic resilience. The fund covered four Hevel Tkuma regional councils — Sha'ar HaNegev, Sdot Negev, Eshkol and Hof Ashkelon — 44 communities (23 kibbutzim and 21 moshavim) between 0 and 7 km from Gaza, plus the towns of Ofakim and Sderot. Israel Hayom reported on 2 February 2026 that the committee had met for the last time, after the whole NIS 100 million had been allocated over two years to rehabilitation work in the Gaza envelope, the western Negev and the north. CEO Dov Kotler called on other leading Israeli organisations to join the fund. ice, Calcalist and Israel Hayom each carried this, but all three trace back to the bank's own announcements rather than to separate reporting.
Donation2024₪119,000,000Israeli populations hit by the war — residents of the Gaza envelope, residents of the north, wounded soldiers, reservists, small-business owners and students
Calcalist, going through the 2024 financial reports of the companies in the Tel Aviv 125 index, put Bank Hapoalim at the head of the Israeli banks with NIS 447 million of benefits and donations together since the start of the war, and NIS 278 million for 2024 alone — 3.6% of the bank's NIS 7.6 billion net profit for that year, the highest share among the banks. That NIS 278 million is the 2024 slice of the same benefits-and-donations basket, not donations on their own: Calcalist gives the donations-only series separately, explicitly excluding the benefits, as NIS 21 million in 2022, NIS 31 million in 2023 and NIS 119 million in 2024, of which NIS 47 million went to rehabilitating the Gaza envelope. NIS 119 million is therefore the figure recorded here. The money was directed at residents of the Gaza envelope, residents of the north, the war's wounded, reservists, small-business owners and students. Calcalist's own caveat is that most of the sum consisted of benefits to the bank's customers — payment relief, loan deferrals and initiatives that can also be read as customer retention or loyalty-building — and this page records that relief separately as the bank's commercial concessions to its own customers, not as giving. The NIS 47 million of Gaza-envelope rehabilitation money in 2024 is very likely a tranche of the NIS 100 million Poalim LeTkuma fund above rather than additional to it, so no dollar figure is set on this row. The figures are Calcalist's reading of the bank's own annual report; we could not read that report directly, because bankhapoalim.com refuses scripted requests and the archived copy of the 2024 ESG report came down truncated.
One source
Donation2023-10-11—Magen David Adom, United Hatzalah, NATAL, ERAN, ZAKA, Access Israel, and the Soroka, Barzilai and Assuta Ashdod hospitals
With the war's outbreak the bank said it had put millions of shekels, on top of its standing community budget, into rescue, medical and mental-health bodies: financial support to the Soroka hospital in Be'er Sheva, Barzilai in Ashkelon and Assuta in Ashdod; direct aid to Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah; support for Access Israel to make life-saving information reachable by people with disabilities; and aid to NATAL and ERAN, which provide psychological support, and to ZAKA. The bank also opened donation channels inside its Bit payment app, first for Magen David Adom, through which close to NIS 3 million was raised, and later for ERAN. That money came from the public and the bank only carried it, so no amount is recorded against the bank here, and the bank gave no breakdown of its own contribution. The account is the bank's own: Haifa Net published it in Arabic on 11 October 2023, ice in Hebrew on 12 October 2023, and Calcalist's English edition Ctech named the same recipients.
In-kind support2023-10—IDF soldiers and their families; residents of the Gaza envelope and southern communities left without a home
In the same October 2023 announcements the bank said it was helping to procure basic equipment for IDF soldiers and their families, and moving fast cash support and equipment to residents of the Gaza envelope and southern communities who had been left without a home. Hundreds of the bank's employees around the country volunteered, including with evacuated families and children from the Gaza envelope — that is the employees' own time, not the corporation's money. The bank put no figure on the equipment, so no amount is recorded. The account is the bank's own: ice carried it in Hebrew on 12 October 2023, Ctech in English, and Haifa Net in Arabic on 11 October 2023, which also described medical and psychological assistance and the mobilising of basic needs.
In-kind support2023-10-10—Israeli reservists, evacuees and businesses near Gaza (bank customers)
Three days after the October 7, 2023 attack, the bank announced a package of concessions for customers called up as military reservists and for residents living up to 40 kilometres from the Gaza Strip: deferral of loan payments for up to two months without charges, a three-month waiver of main bank fees, prime-rate loans, deferral or spreading of credit-card charges, and mortgage payment freezes for up to three months. Alongside it the bank set up a NIS 750 million fund for interest-free bridging loans to business and private customers in the south. These are the bank's own commercial concessions to its customers, not cash grants to organisations.
In-kind support2023-11-16—Bank Hapoalim customers affected by the war
The bank reported it had deferred NIS 17.8 billion ($4.7 billion) of loan and mortgage payments because of the war, of which about NIS 9 billion were housing loans, and estimated the relief would cost it up to about NIS 420 million if every eligible customer used it in full. Precision matters here: part of this relief was mandated for all Israeli lenders by a Bank of Israel plan (three-month mortgage freezes for customers within seven kilometres of the border, fee and interest exemptions), and Bank Hapoalim went beyond that minimum with its own programme. The deferred sums are postponed customer debt, not money given away.
Donation2026-03-13—Bank Hapoalim customer families whose homes were damaged in Zarzir, and northern residents needing emotional support
After a missile fell on the northern village of Zarzir on the night of 12 March 2026, the bank's chairman Noam Hanegbi and CEO Yadin Antabi announced on 13 March 2026 an emergency grant of NIS 2,000 to every Bank Hapoalim customer family whose home had been damaged, paid straight into the account without any application process, together with emotional support and therapy for the children of those families, which the bank said it would extend to any northern resident who needed it. Branch staff in the north were told to find the affected customers and contact them first. The grant was open only to the bank's own customers, and the bank did not say how many families received it or what the package cost, so no amount is recorded. Israel Hayom reported it; the account is the bank's own.
One source
Donation2026-08-03$392,000120 students in Israel, through the Chinuch LePsagot (Education for Excellence) association
On 3 August 2026 the bank opened applications for the eighth consecutive year of its "Poalim LeHatzlacha" scholarship fund, run by its social-banking division with the Chinuch LePsagot (Education for Excellence) association: NIS 1.2 million (about $392,000 at the Bank of Israel rate of 3.059 shekels to the dollar on 3 August 2026), shared as NIS 10,000 each among 120 students from across Israel, with priority for students living or studying near the association's centres. Recipients give 140 volunteer hours a year at those centres, guiding children and teenagers. Bizportal reported that over the fund's first seven years it had paid NIS 7.3 million to 730 students at 53 higher-education institutions, and that the bank expected to put about NIS 2 million into student scholarships in 2026 across all its programmes through its Poalim BaKehila arm. The seventh round, opened in 2025, was the same size.
Donation2026-08-26—The HeChalutz association and the Merkaza Tzafon – Kiryat Shmona association, for Hermon Square in Kiryat Shmona
On 26 August 2026 ice reported a donation of more than NIS 500,000 from the Poalim LeTkuma fund to rehabilitate and run a community and cultural project at Hermon Square, the historic centre of Kiryat Shmona, with the HeChalutz association and the Merkaza Tzafon – Kiryat Shmona association. The money created a permanent community compound called Mona, with a café and a shared workspace, and a series of twelve culture evenings, "Chamishi Chai BaKikar", with live music, family activities and a night market of stalls for Kiryat Shmona businesses badly hit by the war. The sum is given only as more than half a million shekels, so no amount is recorded. ice describes it as the fund's money, and the bank had said in February 2026 that the fund's whole NIS 100 million was already allocated, so this is not necessarily additional to the fund row above.
One source
Operations in Israel2025-09-26—Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem (banking and financial services)
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights lists "Bank Hapoalim Ltd." as entry 17 in its database of business enterprises involved in activities linked to Israeli settlements (A/HRC/60/19, 26 September 2025, 158 enterprises). The listed activities recorded against the bank are (e) provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, (f) banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements, including loans for housing and business development, and (g) the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes. This is a UN finding of "reasonable grounds to believe," recorded here with its source; it is not a court judgment.
Operations in Israel2025-08-25—Building contractors constructing apartment buildings in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (bank guarantees)
Norges Bank, which manages Norway's roughly $2 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, announced on 25 August 2025 that it was excluding Bank Hapoalim BM from the fund, along with Bank Leumi, Mizrahi Tefahot, First International Bank of Israel, FIBI Holdings and Caterpillar, citing an unacceptable risk of contributing to serious violations of individuals' rights in war or conflict. The underlying Council on Ethics recommendation of 2 July 2025 documented that the bank issues the legally mandatory buyer-protection guarantees to contractors building apartment blocks in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem — most recently in 2024 — and called those guarantees "a necessary precondition" for such construction. At the end of 2024 the fund had held 1.39% of the bank's shares, worth NOK 2.5 billion. The bank disputed the Council's conclusions during the process.
Operations in Israel2026-09-24—Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan (construction financing, municipal banking, settler-tourism sponsorship)
Who Profits, an Israeli advocacy research centre that tracks companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, documents in its Bank Hapoalim profile that the bank finances construction, infrastructure and municipal services in Israeli settlements. It provides loans, credit and banking services to more than 150 settlement local and regional councils in the West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan, and has granted dozens of dated construction loans, each secured by a lien on the land or project, to building companies working in settlements including Alfei Menashe, Givat HaMatos, Efrat, Zufim, Beitar Illit, Ma'ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, most recently a loan it dates to January 2026. Specific examples it cites: a NIS 800 million loan (roughly $215 million) to Shriki Group Enterprises & Construction in May 2023 for building in Zufim on land it says belongs to the Palestinian village of Jayyus; loans in November 2023 to three construction companies for the Ariel West Industrial Zone, on land it says belongs to the Palestinian towns of Marda, Salfit and Hares; and financing for the Jerusalem Light Rail, including a NIS 2 billion joint facility with Bank Leumi for the original Red Line in 2006 and a NIS 3.5 billion facility (roughly $1 billion) the bank led in 2020 for the J-Net expansion into East Jerusalem settlement neighbourhoods. Who Profits also documents that the bank sponsored settler-organisation tours in 2024 and 2021 (City of David tours with the Elad organisation; Nebi Samuel and Golan tours with Eshkolot). These are Who Profits' own characterisations and figures, drawn from land-registry and lien filings it reviewed; this entry has not independently re-verified each underlying loan filing, so it is single-sourced to Who Profits.
One source
Donations total$25,692,000

Frequently asked questions

Did Bank Hapoalim donate money to Israel or Israeli causes?

Yes. Documented donations total $25,692,000, including $25,300,000 to Communities of the Gaza envelope and the Hevel Tkuma regional councils, and later communities in the north. Each donation is listed on this page with its date and source.

How much has Bank Hapoalim given?

Documented donations total $25,692,000. The largest single recorded item is $25,300,000 to Communities of the Gaza envelope and the Hevel Tkuma regional councils, and later communities in the north (2023-10-12).

Where does this information come from?

Every record on this page links to its source — news reports, official company statements, tax filings, or government records. 26 distinct sources are cited for Bank Hapoalim. Our methodology page explains the full verification process.

Sources & citations

Record last updated: 2026-09-26

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