In connection with their dangerous assault on Israel on October 7 of last year, the US justice ministry has charged Yahya Sinwar, a head of Hamas, and five other important Hamas members.
The fees, announced in New York, accuse them of conspiring to deliver material aid to a foreign terrorist organization, murdering US citizens, and using weapons of mass destruction. The legal complaint covers Hamas’s admitted years of problems, including the most recent assault on southern Israel almost a year ago.
These allegations are a part of a wider efforts to target all elements of Hamas’s operations, according to attorney general Merrick Garland’s statement in a video released on Tuesday.
The allegations made public today are only one more piece of our strategy to investigate every aspect of Hamas’s activities. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that these actions wo n’t be his or her last.
Justice Department Releases Terrorism Charges Against Senior Hamas Leaders
The costs are the first US law enforcement actions against the attack’s ringleaders, who were killed on October 7.
Among the other Gaza leaders charged are past head Ismail Haniyeh, Marwan Issa, the deputy chief of the team’s military aircraft, Khaled Mashaal, who leads Hamas outside Gaza and the West Bank, Mohammed Deif, and Ali Baraka. The justice ministry noted that all of the accused are either deceased or still at large. Haniyeh, Issa, and Deif have been reported killed in recent months in problems attributed to Israel.
Garland claimed that the defendants were to blame for “financing and steering a decades-long plan to murder Americans and compromise National security.”
He highlighted the group’s terrible activities, including the death of older people, young children, and the use of physical violence against women, including rape and reproductive amputation.
They murdered both the old and the younger children. They weaponized physical violence against women, including murder and reproductive mutilation”, said the attorney general.
He added that the Israeli invasion left over 1,200 dead, making it the deadliest Jewish murder since the Holocaust.
” We are investigating Hersh’s death, and each and every one of Hamas’s terrible murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism”, Garland said.
If convicted, those charged may experience life prison or the death penalty. According to a justice ministry official who spoke to BBC secretly, the claims were initially filed in February, but they were kept secret until Tuesday to increase the likelihood of capturing any of the accused.
US officials have suggested that at least one man, whose personality has not been revealed, is expected to be brought to New York to face trial.
Garland also referred to the latest shooting of US-Israeli prisoner Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, together with 42 different British people killed in the October 7 assault and 10 others who were taken prisoner. He claimed that the justice ministry is looking into these murders as terrorist functions.
President Joe Biden had previously criticized the shooting of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and another, calling on Hamas leaders to be held responsible for their acts.
