Israel, US knew Hamas had ‘almost half a billion dollars’. Then, attack happened

Israeli security officials had found secret documents in 2018 that laid out intricate details of a private equity fund that Hamas used to finance its operations.

The documents listed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars and were taken from the computer of a senior Hamas official, New York Times reported. As per documents, the report claimed that Hamas “controlled mining, chicken farming and road building companies in Sudan, twin skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, a property developer in Algeria, and a real estate firm listed on the Turkish stock exchange.”

The documents were shared with the Israeli government and US but no step was initiated, the report claimed.

“For years, none of the companies named in the ledgers faced sanctions from the United States or Israel. Nobody publicly called out the companies or pressured Turkey, the hub of the financial network, to shut it down,” it said.

Both senior Israeli and American officials failed to prioritize the information that showed that tens of millions of dollars flowed from the companies to Hamas to buy new weapons and prepare for an attack.

That money helped Hamas build up its military infrastructure for the October 7 attacks, the report claimed.

Udi Levy, a former chief of Mossad’s economic warfare division, “Everyone is talking about failures of intelligence on Oct. 7, but no one is talking about the failure to stop the money. It’s the money — the money — that allowed this.”

The portfolio had a value of roughly half a billion dollars.

Brian Nelson, the Treasury Department’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence said, “It’s something we are deeply worried about and expect to see given the financial stress Hamas is under. What we are trying to do is disrupt that.”

After 2018, the money network grew into the mainstream financial system, records show so much so that the Turkish company at the heart of the operation managed shares on behalf of American and European clients as well.