Kevin Cohen is CEO of the cyber-intelligence firm RealEye and head of cyber-intelligence at Trident Group America.
The White House said last week it was moving to the next phase of its Gaza ceasefire plan, the provisions of which include disarming Hamas terrorist group. The unlikelihood of Hamas surrendering its weapons, according to a Jan. 10 Wall Street Journal report, has Israel and Hamas edging toward restarting the conflict. In the months since the ceasefire was negotiated, the Journal says, Hamas has been busy rebuilding its tunnel system and restocking its financial coffers.
If the conflict begins anew, Western anger will almost certainly again be directed at Israel instead of those responsible for suffering in Gaza: Hamas. As in the past, people understandably sympathizing with Gazans will rush to donate money for humanitarian aid, not realizing that often such donations instead are directly funding Hamas.
One reliable source of revenue for the terrorist group since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel has been a far-flung network that the U.S. Treasury Department says “has exploited the suffering in Gaza to solicit funds through sham and front charities that falsely claim to help civilians in Gaza.”
This time around, at least some of the funding channels will have been cut off. On Dec. 27, Italian anti-terrorism prosecutors said nine individuals had been arrested on suspicion of using three charitable organizations to funnel roughly 7 million euros ($8.2 million) to Hamas. The operation “lifted the veil on behavior and activities which, pretending to be initiatives in favor of the Palestinian population,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi wrote on social media, “concealed support for and participation in terrorist organizations.”
Italian police said they also had seized 1.08 million euros ($1.26 million) in cash, and material supporting Hamas, discovered in the offices of a pro-Palestinian charity and in suspects’ homes.
One of those arrested was Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Palestinian Association in Italy, whose lawyer said Hannoun had provided funds to trusted aid organizations in Gaza, not to Hamas. Italian prosecutors described Hannoun as the “head of the Italian cell of the Hamas organization.” That jibes with a description of Hannoun the U.S. Treasury Department in 2024, which designated him as the operator of a “sham charity in Italy which ostensibly raises funds for humanitarian purposes, but in reality helps bankroll Hamas’s military wing.”
The department estimated that, overall, Hamas by early 2024 was receiving “as much as $10 million a month through such donations.” Last June, the Treasury Department expanded its actions, sanctioning additional individuals and sham charities exploiting the suffering in Gaza to aid Hamas.
In the United States, enforcement has largely taken the form of civil forfeiture and sanctions rather than criminal prosecution. For example, in July, the Justice Department announced a civil forfeiture action involving about $2 million in digital currency intended to support Hamas. A few months earlier, the department had seized approximately $200,000 in cryptocurrency that it said was part of a $1.5 million money-laundering operation to aid the terrorist group.
The exploitation of sham charities to support Hamas predates the Oct. 7 slaughter in Israel and ensuing fight in Gaza. In 2014, the Canadian government designated the charity IRFAN-Canada as a terrorist entity. The Canadian Revenue Agency, according to the government, found that “IRFAN-Canada provided over $14.6 million in resources to operating partners that were run by officials of Hamas, openly supported and provided funding to Hamas, or have been listed by various jurisdictions because of their support for Hamas or other terrorist entities.”
In 2010, Germany banned an international aid group known as IHH, which raised millions of dollars in donations annually, for supporting Hamas. In 2021, Germany banned the self-described humanitarian organization Ansaar International on suspicion of funding Hamas and other terrorist groups. The exploitation of charities and nongovernmental organizations for funding terrorism has prompted similar bans over a span of several years in Europe, including in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
But the war in Gaza was clearly a watershed. As The Post reported, three days after the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas’s former political chief Khaled Mashal called for a “financial jihad,” soliciting aid. “A torrent of cash began pouring into accounts set up to help Gazans,” The Post said, “much of it from people moved by images of victims of Israeli airstrikes and genuinely wanting to help. But also answering the call were groups with years of experience in delivering precisely the kind of jihad Hamas’s leader envisioned.”
In an article for the Lawfare website last month, “Cutting Off Hamas’s European Fundraising Spigot,” Michael Jacobson and Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described post-Oct. 7 efforts to thwart the terrorist group’s use of sham charities, citing the Treasury Department’s campaign and several measures taken in Europe and elsewhere.
“Unfortunately,” the authors wrote, “Hamas’s overseas financial support networks remain largely intact. Cracking down on those networks — particularly those in Europe — will be essential as the international community seeks to stabilize and rebuild Gaza.” They added: “Weakening Hamas’s networks around the world can help ensure that Hamas cannot rearm itself and plunge the region back into chaos.”
One way to turn off the spigot would be if well-meaning people around the world simply stopped reflexively turning over money to dubious organizations that purport to aid Gazans, and instead donated to large, well-established humanitarian groups, such as Doctors Without Borders or Save the Children, bringing relief to the region.
The humanitarian impulse is a noble one, but those rushing to help Gazans without distinguishing between aiding people and empowering their rulers ultimately are supporting inhumanity. History has little patience for societies that mistake good intentions for good judgment.
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