The Obscene Wealth in the Personal Accounts of the Hamas Elite

"Gaza suffers from an unemployment rate of over 60%. In a 2022 World Bank report, GDP per capita in Gaza was estimated at $1,257, approximately one-fourth the estimated $4,458 GDP per capita in the West Bank. These figures make it one of the world's most impoverished places. Many attribute its limited economic growth to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that, since 2007, has imposed restrictions on goods entering or exiting the Gaza Strip. This argument, however, ignores a fundamental issue in Gaza, which is the wealth of the Palestinian leadership."

"Today, more than half of the residents of Gaza live in severe poverty, but already in 2012, there were reports of some 600 millionaires living in Gaza, who made their fortunes thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. At that time, newspaper Al Monitor, as cited by The Tower, described the trade through the tunnels as the factor that 'gave birth to a new class of rich people who managed to accumulate a huge fortune in a short period of time'."

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Photos: AP, Martin Meissner, Adel Hana, Reuters, Mahmoud Hefnawy

Redeux Yasser Arafat, the noble defender of Palestinian rights who amassed a fortune for himself from contributions made by the international community meant to give financial support to the Palestinian people living in poverty. Long dead now, but his example lives on! It has been no secret that the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas have amassed their own great wealth using much of the same techniques that Arafat pioneered. They added the 'contributions' of a usurious taxation system from all goods smuggled through the myriad tunnel system in Gaza.

The extent of the riches accumulated by the top leadership is now confirmed, bringing to the world's attention -- that is, those that are interested -- the stark contrast between the Palestinians living in a cruel poverty that is enforced by Hamas's preoccupation with fulfilling its contractual obligations to the devil -- to obliterate Israel from the Middle East rather than building a strong and prosperous nation for the population whose interests they claim to represent -- which has resulted in the vast wealth in their grasping hands.

Hamas is credited with a turnover of $1 billion on an annual basis, representing the second most wealthy terrorist organization on the globe, after the Islamic State whose own turnover is estimated to be two to three times greater. Needless to say, funding contributed by sympathetic individuals and groups, including those scattered throughout Western nations contribute, as well as the trade in contraband goods through criminal syndicates in weaponry, drugs and money-laundering represent other sources of income for Islamist terrorist groups.

The funding that Hamas receives is used mostly for tunnel-building; the construction of critical infrastructure like wells and water treatment is ignored. A deliberate 'oversight' that results in a crisis of 12 percent of childhood deaths in Gaza attributable to contaminated water. A 65-second video was released by the Israeli embassy in the United States, estimating the net worth of several Hamas leaders who reside not in Gaza, but in Qatar. 

 

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian (L) met with Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar. Iranian Foreign Ministry/AFP

Deputy chair of the Hamas Political Bureau, Abu Marzuk has a personal cache of wealth to the value of $3 billion. Senior Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh are each in possession of a fortune valued at $4 billion. A recent estimate for Mashal's fortune was updated to $5 billion, including an investment portfolio with banks in Egypt and real estate projects in Arabian Gulf countries. Hundreds of mid- to high-level Hamas leaders are millionaires thanks to the 20 percent tax on goods smuggled through the Hamas network of tunnels. 

Qatar's unfailing, unending generosity to Hamas is yet another factor in their leaders' wealth accumulation.  As an addendum a MSN report notes that Hamas assets are also made use of for compensation to jailed terrorists or their families, earning payments from $400 monthly to $3,400 per month for jail terms of 30 years or over. In a region where 60 percent of Palestinians live under the international poverty line of $60 per month.

These details are well known, and alert organizations and nations do what they can feasibly to separate themselves from Hamas assets despite complicated enforcement. CNN reported a month ago on an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department in the use of cryptocurrency by the terrorist group; three years ago several such accounts linked to Hamas were seized. 

 

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against "Hamas operatives and financial facilitators" on October 18. Eight individuals in Sudan, Turkey, Qatar, the West Bank and elsewhere were involved, along with a virtual currency company named Buy Cash. 

"The United States is taking swift and decisive action to target Hamas's financiers and facilitators following its brutal and unconscionable massacre of Israeli civilians, including children."

"The U.S. Treasury has a long history of effectively disrupting terror finance, and we will not hesitate to use our tools against Hamas. We will continue to take all steps necessary to deny Hamas terrorists the ability to raise and use funds to carry out atrocities and terrorize the people of Israel."

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen

Hamas' political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh greets supporters during a visit to the Ain el-Helweh camp, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, near the southern coastal city of Sidon. Mahmoud Zayyat, AFP