Washington, September 4:
In relation to its murderous attack in Israel on October 7, last year, the US has indicted Yahya Sinwar, a senior member of Hamas, five other prominent Palestinian leaders, and a foreign terrorist organization.
U.S. citizens and several innocent civilians were among the seven allegations levied against six Hamas members by the US Justice Department on September 3.
Furthermore, it states that Hezbollah of Lebanon and Iran have supplied weaponry and financial backing to Hamas.
The Justice Department's complaint states that "the defendants are either deceased or remain at large."
The federal court in New York City has received a criminal complaint that includes allegations of "financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endangering the security of the United States," according to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland's video statement from Tuesday.
"On October 7, nearly 1200 people, including over 40 Americans, were murdered and hundreds of civilians were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants," Garland stated. This past weekend, news broke that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli American, was one of six hostages that Hamas had been holding for almost a year before they were killed.
We are treating the assassination of Hersh, along with all of the other American civilians brutally killed by Hamas, as a terrorist attack. Our goal is to disrupt Hamas's operations in every way possible, and the accusations revealed today are only a small piece of that puzzle. "We will not rest until we have achieved our goals," the Attorney General declared.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli captive, was laid to rest in Jerusalem two days after his body was discovered in a Gaza tunnel by Israeli defense forces. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had denounced the death of Goldberg-Polin.
Along with Mohammed Deif and Ali Baraka, other senior Hamas figures implicated include the late Ismail Haniyeh of Tehran, Marwan Issa of the organization's military branch, Khaled Mashaal of the group based outside of Gaza and the West Bank, and Mohammed Deif as well.
The United States has labeled Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya, more often known as Hamas, as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) since 1997, according to US court filings. The group was created in 1987.
The 61-year-old commander of Hamas is Yahya Sinwar, whose alias is Abu Ibrahim. He was a founding member of the al-Qassam Brigades and the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from about 2017 onwards. The Gaza Strip is where Sinwar's headquarters are located.
From around 2002 until his reported death on or around July 13, Mohammad Al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif and al Khalid al-Deif) served as the chief commander of the al-Qassam Brigades. It was in the Gaza Strip that al-Masri had his headquarters.
Abu Baraa, whose real name is Marwan Issa, served as the al-Qassam Brigades' deputy commander from 2007 until his supposed death on March 10. The Gaza Strip was Issa's primary base of operations.
Khaled Meshaal, 68, better known as Abu al-Waleed, presided over the Hamas Politburo from 2004 to 2017. He currently leads the group's diaspora office, which is essentially in charge of the organization's official presence outside of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Qatar is Meshaal's main center of operations.
The 57-year-old Ali Baraka was once the representative of Hamas in Lebanon and has been the chairman of National Relations Abroad for Hamas since around 2019. The main location of Baraka is in Lebanon.
