US targets Hamas with sanctions for second time this week
Treasury freezes assets of people and company affiliated with Palestinian terror group, bans Americans from doing business with it
The Obama administration has targeted several officials in the Palestinian Hamas group with sanctions for the second time this week.
The Treasury Department’s action puts Hamas politician Saleh al-Aruri and two Saudi-based financial officers on its terrorism blacklist. Also added are the Saudi-based Asyaf International Holding Group and an Egyptian money exchange owner accused of transferring tens of millions of dollars for Hamas and its military wing in the Gaza Strip.
Any assets the men own in the US are now frozen, and Americans are banned from doing business with them.
Sanctions point-man Adam Szubin said Thursday the department was “committed to exposing and weakening Hamas, its supporters and its terrorist agenda.”
The State Department announced Tuesday that Hezbollah spokesman Samir Kuntar along with Hamas military leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ruhi Mushtaha, and Muhammad Deif, had been added to the specially designated global terrorists list.
Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, said Tuesday’s move by the US government was “worthless,” “immoral and “contrary to international law,” according to a press statement released by the group.
Three of the four men blacklisted by the State Department had been previously arrested by Israel for attacks on Israelis but were later released in prisoner exchanges, including the 2011 swap that led to the release by Hamas of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Kuntar spent 29 years in Israeli custody over the brutal slaying of four Israelis in a 1979 terror raid on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, an attack in which he smashed the head of four-year-old Einat Haran with his rifle butt.
Deif, 51, is known as the head of Hamas’s armed wing, and has survived several attempts on his life by Israel, reportedly leaving him limbless.
As head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Deif is responsible for planning and executing a long string of terror attacks that have killed dozens or even hundreds of Israelis.
The Times of Israel Community.