WASHINGTON—Hamas’ attack upon Israel has raised numerous questions geopolitically, including how the group financed operations, according to a report.
“One answer: cryptocurrency. During the year leading up to the attacks, three militant groups—Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and their Lebanese ally Hezbollah—received large amounts of funds through crypto,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal noted that crypto allows users to bypass banks by instantly transferring tokens between digital wallets, which are normally held at a cryptocurrency exchange.
Digital-currency wallets that Israeli authorities linked to the PIJ received as much as $93 million in crypto between August 2021 and June this year, analysis by leading crypto researcher Elliptic showed, according to the Journal. Wallets connected to Hamas received about $41 million over a similar time period, the report added.
Information Can’t be Determined
The Journal further reported the analysis was unable to determine whether the crypto the organizations received was directly used to finance the assault. It also couldn’t be determined how much crypto Israeli authorities seized from the wallets, but the researchers said that would likely have been a small percentage of the overall amount of funds that flowed through them.
Israeli police announced they have frozen further crypto accounts used by Hamas to solicit donations on social networks, part of a continuing effort to locate the “financial infrastructure in cryptocurrencies used by terror entities to fund their activities.”
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