The U.S. government unveiled fresh sanctions on 10 Hamas members and associates in the wake of the group’s attack on Israel, including asset managers for the group’s investment portfolio and a virtual-currency exchange and its operator.
The Treasury Department said in a press release that the sanctioned entities will have their assets frozen and will be barred from transacting with U.S. banks.
“The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas’s financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “The U.S. Treasury has a long history of effectively disrupting terror finance and we will not hesitate to use our tools against Hamas.”
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Treasury said that the group’s “secret investment portfolio” of investments around the world “generates vast sums of revenue,” and that its assets in countries ranging from Sudan to Turkey are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“This investment network is directed by the highest levels of Hamas leadership and has allowed Hamas senior officials to live in luxury while ordinary Palestinians in
Gaza struggle in harsh living and economic conditions,” according to the release.
The Israel-Hamas war, underway since the stunning Oct. 7 incursion by the extremist group that governs Gaza, has devastated the region. Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed about 3,000 people and wounded more than 12,500 others, according to Palestinian officials, while a blockade by Israel on supplies entering Gaza has left residents without adequate food, water or fuel. Hamas’s attack on Israel killed at least 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
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