Department of Justice announces terrorism charges against Hamas leaders

The US Department of Justice unsealed a set of charges against three senior leaders of Hamas, including terrorism, murder conspiracy and sanctions-evasion charges.

The case, originally filed in New York federal court in February, accuses the Hamas officials of a range of terrorism-related offences stretching from 1997 through the present conflict with Israel that began on 7 October.

Merrick B. Garland, attorney general, said: “The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States."

Garland refered in his comments to 23-year-old Hersg Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American found dead in Gaza at the weekend. President Joe Biden earlier condemned Goldberg-Polin's killing, too, calling it "as tragic as it is reprehensible".

“On October 7th, Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants, murdered nearly 1200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians.”

The indictment names six Hamas leaders spread across the Gaza Strip, Qatar, and Lebanon: Ismail Haniyeh, the former chairman of the Hamas politburo; Yahya Sinwar, the current leader of Hamas; Mohammad Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, the former commander of al-Qassam Brigades, Marwan Issa, the former deputy commander of al-Qassam Brigades; Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas diaspora office; and Ali Baraka, head of Hamas’s unit for national relations abroad.

After the charges were filed, Issa and Deif were killed in Israeli airstrikes, and Haniyeh was assassinated during a visit to Hamas patron Iran.