US announces charges against Sinwar, 5 more Hamas chiefs day after Goldberg-Polin burial
Impact of criminal case may be mostly symbolic since terror chief on run and Haniyeh, Deif and Issa dead, but naming Mashaal suggests US may plan to pressure Qatar to hand him over
The US Justice Department announced criminal charges Tuesday against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and five other leaders in the terror group in connection with the October 7 onslaught in Israel, marking the first effort by American law enforcement to formally call out the masterminds of the attack.
The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to murder US nationals and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group of providing financial support and weapons to Hamas.
The impact of the case may be mostly symbolic given that Sinwar is believed to be hiding in tunnels in Gaza and the Justice Department says three of the six defendants are believed now to be dead. But officials say additional actions are expected as part of a broader effort to target the Gaza-based group that the US designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and has been linked to a series of deadly attacks on Israel, including suicide bombings.
The complaint was originally filed under seal in February to give the US time to try to take into custody then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, but the politburo chief’s July 31 assassination along with other recent developments lessened the need for secrecy, the Justice Department said.
On Monday, former American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was laid to rest in Jerusalem two days after his body was recovered by the IDF and returned to Israel. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Goldberg-Polin was “executed” along with five other hostages, confirming the IDF’s account that the six were killed by their Hamas guards who suspected that Israeli troops were approaching.
“We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of the brutal murders of Americans, as acts of terrorism,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “We will continue to support the whole of government effort to bring the Americans still being held hostage home.”
The other Hamas leaders charged were Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, the once-deputy leader of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza, who was killed by Israel in March; Khaled Mashaal, a Haniyeh deputy based in Doha and a former leader of the group; Muhammad Deif, the longtime Hamas military wing chief, who Israel killed in July; and Ali Baraka, the Beirut-based head of Hamas’s external relations.
“Those defendants… led Hamas’ efforts to destroy the State of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim in its attacks over the past three decades,” Garland said.
“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” the attorney general added. “These actions will not be our last.”
A US official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press there was no reason to believe the charges would affect the ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Sinwar was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Haniyeh in Iran and sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list. He is believed to have spent most of the past 11 months since Hamas’s October 7 massacre living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world. He was a long-serving Palestinian prisoner freed in a 2011 exchange of the type that would be part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Charging Hamas and Sinwar, who is in hiding, allows the federal government to add resources to tracking the group and subpoenaing individuals who are alleged to support it. Naming Mashaal suggests the Biden administration may plan to pressure Qatar, one of a handful of countries that has relations with Hamas, to hand over its leaders based in the country.
“Since 2019, Hamas’s military wing has used social media and other platforms to call for cryptocurrency contributions from supporters abroad, including in the United States, to Hamas-controlled virtual wallets, explicitly acknowledging that those payments would be used to fund Hamas’ campaign of violence,” the Justice Department said. “Through these mechanisms, Hamas has received tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency payments to fund its activities.”
The charges notably were filed in the Southern District of New York, staffed with federal prosecutors who have for decades been leading terrorism prosecutions.
“Our commitment is clear: if you hurt one member of our community, you hurt all of us — and we stand with all victims of Hamas’ reign of terror,” said the district’s US Attorney, Damian Williams. “We will bring justice to this terrorist organization from the top down for the atrocities they have committed.”
During the October 7 onslaught, Hamas-led terrorists slaughtered some 1,200 people — including 40 American citizens — and took 251 people hostage. Roughly 100 hostages remain, at least a third of whom have been confirmed dead by the IDF.
The criminal complaint describes the massacre as the “most violent, large-scale terrorist attack” in Hamas’s history. It details how Hamas operatives arrived in southern Israel with “trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders” and engaged in a brutal campaign of violence that included rape, genital mutilation and machine-gun shootings at close range.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
