Hamas Leaders Charged with Terrorism-Related Offenses by US Justice Department

The US Department of Justice has charged six leaders of Hamas with terrorism-related offenses. The charges span from 1997 through the present conflict with Israel that began on October 7.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States.

Ismail Haniyeh, the former chairman of the Hamas politburo; Yahya Sinwar, the current leader of Hamas; Mohammad Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, the former commander of al-Qassam Brigades, Marwan Issa, the former deputy commander of al-Qassam Brigades; Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas diaspora office; and Ali Baraka, head of Hamas’s unit for national relations abroad.

After the charges were filed, Issa and Deif were killed in Israeli airstrikes, and Haniyeh was assassinated during a visit to Hamas patron Iran.

The announcement comes as ceasefire talks between Israel and Gaza have failed to produce a concrete resolution and U.S. and Israeli officials face ever-growing pressure to bring about an end to the war.

Israel said on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of six hostages killed in a tunnel under the Palestinian city of Rafah, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American who had become one of the most widely known of the more than 200 hostages captured by the Palestinian militant group.

The discovery prompted yet another round of large-scale protests critical of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the streets of Israel.

In May, the International Criminal Court announced it would seek war crimes warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Sinwar, Deif, and Haniyeh.