Hamas uses a global financing network to funnel support from charities and friendly nations, passing cash through Gaza tunnels or using cryptocurrencies to bypass international sanctions.
Last week Israeli police froze a Barclays bank account the authorities said was linked to Hamas fundraising and blocked cryptocurrency accounts used to gather donations, without specifying the number of accounts or the value of the assets.
Matthew Levitt, a former US official specialising in counterterrorism, estimated that the bulk of Hamas’s budget of more than US$300 million (R5.7 billion) came from business taxes and from countries including Iran and Qatar, or charities.
Hamas has increasingly used cryptocurrencies, credit cards or contrived trade deals to avoid mounting international restrictions, Levitt said.
‘Hamas has been one of the more successful users of crypto for the financing of terrorism’, said Tom Robinson, co-founder of blockchain research firm Elliptic.
However, this year Hamas said it would back away from crypto, after a spate of losses. Cryptocurrencies’ ledger systems can make such transactions traceable.
One likely reason for the low donation volume is that Israeli authorities are targeting them immediately. Israel had seized cryptocurrency worth ‘tens of millions of dollars’ from Hamas-linked addresses in recent years.
Iran provides up to $100-million annually to support Palestinian groups including Hamas; it moves money through shell companies, shipping transactions and precious metals.
Hamas has a secret network of companies managing $500-million in investments in companies from Turkey to Saudi Arabia2.
Iran has backed the Palestinian cause since the 1979 revolution to make itself a leader of the Muslim world.
Stephen Reimer of the think-tank Royal United Services Institute predicted that fresh attempts to fully restrict the group’s access to formal financial channels would have limited success. ‘Their financing tactics have grown to circumvent these’.
[Photo: WorldSpectrum/Pixabay]