DALLAS—A Muslim charity’s support of Palestinians under Israeli occupation did not break the law, defense attorneys in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing retrial told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday.

Last year’s trial of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development ended in no convictions and a mistrial on most charges in the government’s biggest terror-financing trial since Sept. 11, 2001.

The defense stressed the former Richardson charity’s humanitarian work Tuesday and lambasted government evidence as old and irrelevant. Linda Moreno, attorney for former Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, told jurors her client put politics aside in order to help Palestinians under the brutal Israeli occupation.

“For those who have been impoverished by politics and history and failed leadership, for all those generations of refugees that he helped feed and clothe and educate, Ghassan Elashi does not apologize for serving them,” she told jurors, The Dallas Morning News reported in its online edition. “He knew the work of the Holy Land Foundation attracted enemies.”

Moreno acknowledged that wiretapped phone calls showed Elashi questioned the fairness of U.S. terrorism laws that he thought would stifle legitimate overseas aid to the needy Palestinians and other refugees. “But,” she said, “he sought to obey.”

Prosecutors say Holy Land funneled more than $12 million to Palestinian schools and charities controlled by the militant group Hamas after the U.S. government declared Hamas a terrorist group in 1995, which made supporting it illegal.

Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. before it was shut down in December 2001.

Former Holy Land chief executive Shukri Abu Baker and former Holy Land Chairman Ghassan Elashi are each charged with conspiracy, supporting a foreign terrorist organization, money laundering and filing false tax returns.

Tightening their case from the initial trial, prosecutors dropped most of nearly 30 counts against Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh. The men still face three conspiracy counts.

Mohammed El-Mezain, a former Holy Land chairman acquitted on most charges in the first trial, is charged with one conspiracy count.

In the government rebuttal Tuesday—the final word before deliberations begin—prosecutor Jim Jacks reminded jurors of videos from the 1980s and early 1990s of Palestinian festivals where speakers and musicians openly praised Hamas and Holy Land raised money.

“Can there be any doubt that these men were the leaders of Hamas in the United States, and that they were the fundraising mechanism?” he asked. “Look at all those videos. It seems like every song was about support of Hamas, about martyrdom, about jihad, about killing Jews.”

Jury deliberations were set to begin Wednesday.