Israel has gained access to detailed records of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Hamas assets, but nothing has been done to shut off the faucet, The New York Times reports.
According to the report, in 2018, senior Israeli officials gained access to classified documents that described in detail what appeared to be an investment fund used by Hamas to finance its operations.
The lists obtained from the computer of a senior Hamas official detailed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Among the assets are road construction companies in Sudan, skyscrapers in the UAE, a real estate company in Algeria and even businesses in poultry farming.
These documents would have made it possible to reduce Hamas' revenues and thwart its plans. The agents who obtained the information shared it with the government in Israel and in Washington – but nothing happened. Not a single company among those found in the records has been sanctioned by the United States or Israel. No one publicly pressured Turkey, from which the property network was operated, to shut it down.
It is also reported that at its peak, Hamas had assets of half a billion dollars. According to the investigation, both U.S. and Israeli officials failed to recognize the importance of financial intelligence, which explicitly pointed to diverting tens of millions of dollars in asset revenues to Hamas just as the terrorist group was purchasing weapons and planning the attack. These funds helped Hamas build the military infrastructure and prepare for the attack on October 7. "Everyone talks about the intelligence failures on October 7, but no one talks about the failure to stop the money," Udi Levy, former head of the Mossad's economic warfare division, told The New York Times. "It was the money that made the attack possible."
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