The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Tuesday that it is imposing new sanctions on Hamas leaders and financiers, including on a Lebanon-based leader of the terror group who called for the attacks undertaken in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to be repeated until the Jewish state is annihilated.
Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, said some of the officials sanctioned on Tuesday were involved in smuggling equipment and materials used to construct Hamas’s vast tunnel network in Gaza.
“There is no distinction between Hamas’s so-called military wing and its political leadership,” Miller said. “We will continue to use the tools at our disposal to target those who perpetuate Hamas’s destabilizing activities.”
One of the six Hamas officials targeted by the Treasury, Ghazi Hamad, is a Hamas spokesman who argued in October 2023 that Hamas’s slaughter of civilians was legitimate.
“Nobody should blame us for the things we do,” he told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. “On Oct. 7, Oct. 10, Oct. 1 million—everything we do is justified.”
“The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” he added, using Hamas’s code name for the attacks. “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again.”
JNS sought comment from Treasury as to why Hamad wasn’t designated for sanctions earlier given such widely circulated comments.
‘There’s no real strategy here’
Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that it isn’t a coincidence that the Biden administration announced sanctions on Hamas a day after it imposed sanctions on Israelis it accused of “extremist violence” in Judea and Samaria.
“The administration doesn’t really have a sanctions policy. They have a strategic communications campaign,” Goldberg told JNS.
“We’re going to have sanctions on the Israelis, but we’re going to balance that out with some sanctions on Iran, and we’re going to have a couple of sanctions on Hamas and then we’re going to get back to pushing Israel on a ceasefire with Hezbollah,” he added. “There’s no real strategy here.”
Instead of imposing sanctions “for impact and behavioral effect, they seem to always roll out sanctions for the sake of headlines and political and press effects, not policy effects,” he said.
The move to sanction six additional members of Hamas comes as the terror group’s leadership has reportedly relocated from Qatar to Turkey.
Majed Al Ansari, the spokesman for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed on Tuesday that the Hamas negotiating team was no longer in Doha but said that no decision had been made to permanently close its office in the city.
“The office of Hamas in Doha was created for the sake of the mediation process,” Al Ansari stated. “Obviously, when there is no mediation process, the office itself doesn’t have any function other than being part of the mediation process.”
“At the moment, I can confirm that they are not in Doha, but I won’t go into the details of what that means,” he added. “The decision to close it down—to close down the office permanently—is a decision that you will hear about from us directly, and it shouldn’t be part of media speculation.”
Qatar announced on Nov. 9 that it had suspended its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas to achieve a ceasefire-for-hostages deal but denied media reports that it had ordered the Hamas office be closed.
Goldberg told JNS that the Biden administration has not used the tools it has available to require Qatar and Turkey, both U.S. allies, to force the members of Hamas’s overseas political leadership to release hostages the group holds in Gaza.
“I find it troubling that the Biden administration would give Qatar any room to allow these council members to leave Qatar without being detained, arrested or extradited,” he said. “These are the terror leaders of Hamas. They should be under pressure to surrender publicly.”
Washington has designated Hamas a foreign terror organization since October 1997.
“Why would they be allowed to just leave Doha freely and travel to Turkey?” Goldberg told JNS. “Why would Turkey be allowed to have Hamas terrorist leaders travel in and out of Turkey without any arrest, detention or extradition?”
‘Increase its pressure on government’
With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on Jan. 20, revising the Biden administration’s sanctions policies, including its executive order on “high levels of extremist settler violence” in Judea and Samaria, is likely to be a priority for the new administration.
Anti-Israel politicians in Washington are encouraging the Biden administration to impose further sanctions on Israel.
“One of the day-one priorities for an incoming administration should be to rescind the executive order, and then Congress needs to follow up and pass legislation to prohibit future presidents from ever trying to resuscitate a BDS campaign against Israel,” Goldberg said, referring to global efforts to boycott Israel.
He noted that “there will definitely be potential for a new administration to increase its pressure on governments that have influence over Hamas, that are harboring Hamas leaders.”
