In a groundbreaking move, the US Department of Justice has unsealed terrorism charges against top Hamas officials. How will this impact Hamas’ operations and international standing?
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN | SEPTEMBER 4, 2024
Yahya Sinwar, former leader of the Palestinian Hamas Islamist movement at a meeting with members of Palestinian factions at Hamas President’s office in Gaza City, on April 13, 2022 (photo credit: ATTIA MUHAMMED/FLASH90)
The US charges against key senior figures in Hamas are a crucial step in bringing Hamas leaders to justice and revealing the terrorist group’s crimes. The US Department of Justice announced that it was “unsealing of terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges against six senior leaders of Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization,” on September 3.
This is essential because it marks a turning point in the public effort to bring Hamas to justice. While the US and other Western countries may have been working behind the scenes for almost eleven months since the October 7 attack, this unsealing of public charges will make it harder for Hamas to escape justice. Hamas has been playing since October 7. It had hoped that Qatar and Egypt might help it broker a deal. It had been using hostages to get this deal. However, it recently murdered six hostages, including an American citizen.
Hamas believed it could kill the hostages because it had already murdered more than 1,000 people, including numerous Americans, on October 7. Hamas leaders have been residing in Doha, Qatar. Qatar is an American “major non-NATO ally.” Former Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal recently gave a speech at a conference in Istanbul calling for more attacks on Israel. Istanbul is a member of NATO in Turkey. Hamas believed that it had protection from Turkey and Qatar and that because of this, it could commit a massacre of people in Israel and murder hostages and that there would be no charges. It believed this because it had carried out numerous murderous bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s, and its leaders were never charged. Furthermore, Hamas leaders were welcomed in Doha in 2012. Qatar became a major non-NATO ally of the US, meaning Hamas believed that its patrons in Doha were being rewarded for hosting it.
The US has now openly said that Hamas is responsible for planning, supporting, and Perpetrating the October 7 massacre and that Hamas murdered over 40 American citizens. Hamas may now be learning what Osama Bin Laden and Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi, leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS, learned in the past. They thought they could murder thousands and get away with it. However, both of them found out that the US does not forget. They were both hunted down.
US ATTORNEY-GENERAL Merrick Garland speaks at the Justice Department. Zachor Legal Institute, on behalf of 28 other organizations, has sent him documentation on how groups like Students for Justice in Palestine have coordinated and executed mass deprivations of rights of Jewish students. (credit: KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS)
The US has indicted several Hamas members that Israel already killed. These include Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, and Ismail Haniyeh. However, the unsealed US charges also include Yahya Sinwar, Khalad Mashaal and Ali Baraka. The US Department of Justice notes that Mashaal is “effectively responsible for Hamas’ official presence outside of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Mashaal is based principally in Qatar.”
This is calling out Qatar, and now, every time Doha is praised by the US for its role in ceasefire talks, it is worth mentioning that the US is seeking to arrest Mashaal, who lives in Doha. Furthermore, Ali Baraka, a Hamas leader in Beirut, is now also being called out. The US says he has been “Hamas’ head of National Relations Abroad since approximately 2019 and was previously Hamas’s representative in Lebanon. Baraka is based principally in Lebanon.”
The US charges against Hamas don’t leave much to the imagination. They detail its historic role in terror. They also detail ow it has been involved in the “the murders and kidnappings of countless innocent civilians, including American citizens, which was the culmination of Hamas’s decades-long campaign of terrorism and violence against Israel and its allies, including American citizens.”
The US must also singled out the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. “This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered an additional six people they had kidnapped and held captive for nearly a year, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli American. We are investigating Hersh’s murder and each and every one of Hamas’ brutal murders of Americans as an act of terrorism. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.”
The US is putting Hamas on notice. For almost eleven months, Hamas had privilege. It believed it was fighting Israel and that, with backing from Russia, China, Iran, Qatar, and Turkey, it could isolate Israel. Up until late August, Hamas believed it was winning. It was hoping that it could hold out and not release hostages, that it could openly murder hostages, and that its leaders would still relax in Doha, Ankara, Beirut, and Ankara.
That is why Hamas made videos of the six hostages it murdered and has been releasing them. Hamas believes there are no consequences to its actions. It has friends in high places, or so it believed. It has worked with international organizations over the years. It has openly placed its members in these organizations. It has used schools and shelters for terrorist purposes and tunneled under UN sites. It has used universities and hospitals. All of these exploitation of civilian institutions are war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, Hamas believed it could continue to do this without any kind of indictment on the international level.
The US decision fundamentally changed things. Israel has captured a large number of Hamas members, but it has not put them on trial for October 7. Now that the US has moved forward, it may be time for Israel also to bring the Hamas members to trial so that there can be a kind of closure. This would be akin to bringing Adolf Eichmann to trial and lead to a kind of catharsis.
Why is this important?
Public trials and criminal indictments are essential because they create a public record of crimes. It makes it harder to release the criminals. It makes it harder for them to get endless deals and also jet between various Western allies. Hamas members used to travel in the West. Hamas leader Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, for instance, was arrested in the US in 1995. After the trial, he moved to Jordan. He enjoyed a life of privilege in the US for a decade, and he even obtained residency. This was even though Hamas was already carrying out murderous attacks. Marzook enjoyed privilege after leaving the US, giving interviews for years, and being coddled by Western media like other Hamas members such as Ghazi Hamid. This has been the historic method of Hamas.
They praised Hamas for “resistance” and printed up posters with hang gliders praising the murder of Israelis. Even though Hamas committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah, college students in the US mobilized to help rip down the posters of hostages held by the group. As the first anniversary of October 7 approaches, many of these college groups continue to praise Hamas.
The US indictment of Hamas leaders sends a message. It says that this is not “resistance” but rather murder. “For decades, Hamas and its leadership have dedicated themselves to the eradication of the State of Israel and to murdering, maiming, and brutalizing anyone — including dozens of Americans — who stood in their way,” US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said.
The US document accusing Hamas leaders of a plethora of crimes details the group’s rise and also its backing by Iran. This is a historic document. It is a significant shot in the war on terror and the war to hold Hamas accountable for October 7. By releasing these charges, the US is doing an essential service to the cause of justice.
I feel certain that the Hamas leaders must be quaking in their boots because of this action. Just think: the administration of that demented fool in the White House has unsealed accusations against them. Justice is on their trail; the lady has a sword and the Americans will make sure she uses it. When you stop laughing about this, I feel sure that most will agree that the only action to be pursed is to kill them wherever and whenever they are found. The more, the merrier and the sooner, the better.