Israel has asked the Netherlands for clarification about financial aid given to the human rights organisation Breaking the Silence which recently questioned the use of crude violence by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza strip, reports the Volkskrant website on Sunday night.

The claim was made in an Israeli newspaper but the Dutch foreign affairs ministry says no such complaint has been made so there is no reason to stop the subsidy, says the Volkskrant.
According to a close colleague of the minister in The Hague, the subsidy is in line with the human rights policy of Maxime Verhagen, the paper reports.
The Dutch government has given Breaking the Silence around €24,000 says the Volkskrant. The organisation’s spokesman Yehuda Shaul, told the paper that the money is intended for an ‘educational programme’ which involves former soldiers informing young Israelis during a visit to the occupied Palestinian territory about the way the army operates.
The group recently published a damning report on the actions of soldiers during Israeli’s offensive in the Gaza region at the beginning of this year during which at least 1,100 Palestinians are believed to have died.
According to an article on the International Middle East Media Center website on Monday, Harry Knei, Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands, met with the director general of the Dutch foreign ministry last week to complain about Dutch funding for the group and calling for it to be halted.