Hamas banks up to million a month through online donations
Hamas has been receiving $8 million to $12 million a month through online donations since its murderous assault on Israel on Oct. 7, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The funding, mostly from organizations posing as charities to assist Gaza civilians, represents a “multi-fold increase” over what the terrorist group was getting before the massacre, officials at the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel told the news agency.
Washington is aware of the online donations and is assisting Jerusalem in halting what Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh called in a speech earlier this month “financial jihad,” a senior U.S. official said.
Since Oct. 7, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed four rounds of financial sanctions on Hamas.
Israel and the United States are part of a 16-member task force established since the start of the war to counter fundraising by the Gaza-based terrorist group, which includes Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
“There is no question that there is a sharp increase in legitimate and illegitimate charitable giving to Palestinians in wake of the Gaza hostilities,” Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Bloomberg.
“An uptick in the interest to donate gives increased cover for Hamas. I’ve seen charities that were previously designated [for sanctions] by the US popping up, some under new names, but there are also lots of new ones,” the analyst continued.
Additionally, Hamas has been receiving around $30 million a month from its patron, Qatar, with Israeli approval, along with funds from the Palestinian Authority and local tax revenues. According to Israeli intelligence, Iran gives more than $100 million for Hamas’s “military.” Other income streams come from foreign investments and donations.
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