WASHINGTON (CN) — The United States on Wednesday announced sanctions against eight Hamas officials — even as President Joe Biden warns Israel of waning international support for its war in Gaza.
The State and Treasury departments unveiled the sanctions as Biden met with families of those still held hostage by Hamas.
The long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people, which traces back to the founding of Israel in 1948, escalated Oct. 7 when Hamas militants entered Israel for the first time in decades. Militants took hundreds of hostages and killed about 1,200 people in Israel. At least 17,487 Palestinians have since been killed in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, one of the three main Palestinian areas occupied by Israel since 1967, after winning a legislative election in 2006.
Israel implemented a blockade of the strip after Hamas took formal control in 2007, and the group has been the ruling local authority ever since. Israel is currently conducting ground operations in Gaza with the goal of removing Hamas.
That military campaign has been marked by heavy Palestinian civilian casualties. Biden noted Tuesday that Israel’s conduct is causing it to lose international support. He also appeared to imply that Israel was committing war crimes through what he called “indiscriminate bombing.”
Biden said he'd brought concerns about Israel’s conduct to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said Netanyahu compared the operation to Allied bombing of Germany in World War II, as well as to the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War II: to see to it that it didn’t happen again,’” Biden told donors at the event Tuesday.
The U.S. government has not made any formal determination that Israel is committing war crimes. Administration officials on Wednesday tried to frame Biden’s comments as concerns for civilian casualties, not an implication of war crimes.
“We have had concerns, and we have expressed those concerns about the prosecution of this military campaign — even while acknowledging that it’s Hamas that started this [war] and it’s Hamas that is continuing it,” John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, told reporters Wednesday.
“This is a war that Hamas has brought on itself," he added. "We can’t forget how this all happened: a series of deadly and devilish attacks that were intent on taking innocent life.”
State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Biden was referring to “the impact of the large-scale bombing campaign that we’ve seen where thousands of civilians have been killed.”
“We understand Israel’s intent, but as [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] has said, what also matters is the results, which is why we have continued to encourage them to take additional steps to protect civilians from harm,” Miller said.
As the conflict carries on, Biden is sending his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, to Israel on Thursday and Friday to discuss the conflict with Netanyahu and his cabinet. Meanwhile, at a Hanukkah reception on Monday, Biden himself told Jewish leaders that without Israel, “there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe."
Still, he also warned of potential growing backlash to Israeli conduct in Gaza.
“The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight,” he said. “We can’t let that happen.”
Wednesday’s sanctions were the U.S.’s fourth round since the conflict began. Miller said they were issued in coordination with the United Kingdom.
“The United States and our allies and partners are steadfast in our commitment to dismantling networks that support Hamas funding streams, as part of our continuous effort to prevent and deter its terrorist activity,” he said.
The sanctioned individuals are Ismail Musa Ahmad Barhum, a member of the Gaza Strip Political Bureau; Haroun Mansour Yaqoub Nasser Al-Din, the head of Hamas’s Jerusalem office; Ali Abed Al Rahman Baraka, head of Hamas’s National Relations Abroad; Jihad Muhammad Shaker Yaghmour, Hamas’s official representative to Turkey; Maher Rebhi Obeid, a member of Hamas’s Political Bureau; Nizar Mohammed Awadallah, a Hamas board member; Hassan Al-Wardian, a Hamas representative in Bethlehem; and Mehmet Kaya, who has handled financial services for Hamas.
“Hamas continues to rely heavily on networks of well-placed officials and affiliates, exploiting seemingly permissive jurisdictions to direct fundraising campaigns for the group’s benefit and funneling those illicit proceeds to support its military activities in Gaza,” Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a press release. “We remain focused, as do our allies and partners, on leveraging our collective tools and authorities to degrade Hamas’s ability to fund additional attacks and further destabilize the region.”
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