Hamas' recent attack on Israeli territory left the world in shock, but also raised a critical question: How did the group finance this operation? The surprising answer lies in cryptocurrencies. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing Israeli government data and a blockchain analysis report, three groups (Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah) received significant sums of money through cryptocurrencies. To counter this, the government has frozen cryptocurrency accounts used to solicit donations.
Cryptocurrency research firm Elliptic reported that PIJ received $93 million in cryptocurrency between August 2021 and June of this year, while another firm, BitOK, claimed that wallets associated with Hamas received approximately $41 million over a period. similar.
All three groups have yet to respond to these developments. The WSJ noted that the United States has designated Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah as foreign terrorist organizations, resulting in sanctions by the Treasury Department that limited their access to the international banking system. Consequently, they turned to unregulated cryptocurrencies to receive funds.
However, it is unclear whether the funds they received were directly used to finance Saturday's assault. The exact amount seized from the cryptocurrency wallets also remains uncertain.
Israeli police cited their motivation for freezing these crypto accounts as an attempt to stop the flow of money Hamas raises through social media campaigns. According to a police statement, "With the outbreak of war, the terrorist organization Hamas began a fundraising campaign on social media, urging the public to deposit cryptocurrencies into their accounts." They also revealed that the Police Cyber โโUnit and the Ministry of Defense, with the help of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, quickly took steps to locate and freeze these accounts in order to divert the funds to the state treasury.
The statement did not provide further details on the number of frozen accounts or the value of the seized cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies allow users to bypass traditional banks by facilitating instant transfers between digital wallets, usually found on cryptocurrency exchanges. For their transactions, Hamas and other groups primarily used the Tether stablecoin, which is pegged to the US dollar, avoiding the volatility that affects other tokens, as the WSJ reported. When asked about the use of its tokens, Tether affirmed its commitment to preventing terrorist involvement, including freezing related wallets.
