America has charged a number of Hamas leaders with involvement within the Palestinian group’s lethal assault on Israel on October 7 final yr.
The Justice Division mentioned it was indicting six Hamas members on fees together with murdering U.S. residents, conspiring to finance terrorism and utilizing weapons of mass destruction.
“The fees introduced immediately are only one a part of our efforts to focus on all elements of Hamas operations,” mentioned U.S. Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland.
These charged embody Hamas political leaders Ismael Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. He was killed in Iran in July and Yahya Sinwar took over after Haniyeh’s dying.
Different Hamas leaders charged embody Marwan Issa, deputy chief of the group’s armed wing; Khaled Mashaal, who leads the group exterior Gaza and the West Financial institution; Mohammed · Deif and Ali Baraka.
Garland mentioned in a video assertion that the group was accountable for “funding and directing a decades-long marketing campaign to homicide Americans and endanger the safety of the USA.”
The group additionally “leads Hamas to destroy the State of Israel and homicide civilians in assist of this aim”.
He referred to the October 7 assault by Hamas on Israel, through which the group “murdered total households.”
“They homicide outdated individuals, they homicide younger youngsters. They weaponize sexual violence towards girls.”
He added that within the assaults, the group “murdered greater than 1,200 individuals” and “carried out the worst bloodbath of Jews because the Holocaust.”
The fees additionally embody conspiring to bomb a public place inflicting dying, conspiring to finance terrorism and offering materials assist for a terrorist act inflicting dying.
The DOJ grievance states that every one “defendants are both deceased or stay at massive.”
In his speech, the Legal professional Basic talked about the killing of 23-year-old American Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin final week, along with the killing of 40 Americans on October 7 killed within the assault and eight of them have been taken hostage.
“We’re investigating Hersh’s homicide, and each brutal homicide of Individuals by Hamas, as an act of terrorism,” he mentioned.
FBI Director Christopher Wray added that Hamas, which is assessed as a overseas terrorist group in the USA, “has an extended historical past of violence and the group’s actions have resulted in elevated terrorist threats in the USA and undermined U.S. safety all over the world.” Profit”.
U.S. officers have additionally famous Iran’s function in supporting Hamas.
“Hamas’ assaults play an essential function within the Iranian authorities’s regional and world efforts to assist terrorism to weaken and finally destroy the USA and Israel,” the Justice Division assertion mentioned.
If convicted, the group faces as much as life in jail or the dying penalty.
