US Sanctions Network Used by Iran to Fund Hamas

The United States has imposed a third round of sanctions aimed at Palestinian terrorist group Hamas following its attack on Israel last month, targeting its leaders and “the mechanisms by which Iran provides support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).”

“Iranian support, primarily through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has enabled Hamas’s and PIJ’s terrorist activities, to include the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in financial assistance and the furnishing of both weapons and operational training,” the Treasury Department said in a statement on November 14.

The entities targeted include the Muhjat AlQuds Foundation in Gaza, an Iran-funded organization whose primary mission is to provide financial support to the families of PIJ fighters and prisoners, the statement said.

The Lebanon-based money exchange company Nabil Chouman & Co, which Hamas has used to transfer money from Iran to Gaza, was also sanctioned, along with the company’s owner and founder.

Treasury said the action, taken in coordination with the UK, also targeted a senior member and co-founder of Hamas, PIJ’s representative to Iran and the Damascus-based deputy secretary-general of PIJ and leader of its militant wing.

“The United States will continue to work with our partners, including the U.K., to deny Hamas the ability to raise and use funds to carry out its atrocities,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. 

“Hamas’s actions have caused immense suffering and shown that terrorism does not occur in isolation,” she added. “Together with our partners we are decisively moving to degrade Hamas’s financial infrastructure, cut them off from outside funding, and block the new funding channels they seek to finance their heinous acts.”