Yahoo News $10m reward for information on top five Hamas backers
The United States is offering a reward of up to $10million (£7.8 million) for intelligence on five key Hamas financiers.
The five men, all of whom have been designated terrorists in the past, are responsible for funnelling tens of millions of dollars to the group, the state department said.
It is the latest measure rolled out by Washington designed to starve Hamas of cash and foreign exchange.
The US has imposed four rounds of sanctions on the terror group since Oct 7 and is now appealing for intelligence on five of its major money men.
The most influential of the five is Abdelbasit Hamza Elhassan Khair, a dual Spanish-Sudanese national known as Hamza.
The state department said he has been involved in the transfer of almost $20 million (£15.7 million) to Hamas as the manager of its investment portfolio.
Hamza, 68, is said to have ties to the north African country’s president Omar Bashir and Islamist groups based there.
“He has longstanding financing ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden-linked companies in Sudan,” the US Rewards for Justice website reads.
Three others – Amer Kamal Sharif Alshawa, Ahmed Sadu Jahleb and Walid Mohammed Mustafa Jadallah – are said to live in Turkey, where they manage a Hamas property investment portfolio.
The state department is also pursuing Muhammad Ahmad ‘Abd Al-Dayim Nasrallah, a Jordan-born 59-year-old who it said has helped channel tens of millions of dollars to Hamas and has close ties to unnamed “Iranian entities”.
The eight-figure reward has also been offered for other intelligence on Hamas’s revenue streams, major donors and front companies.
Intelligence on criminal activities
The US is looking for intelligence on criminal activities used to fund the terror group and financial institutions which facilitate its transactions, the state department added.
It said more than $250 million (£196 million) has been paid out to informants since the Rewards for Justice initiative was set up in 1984.
Hamas has built a global financing network to fund its terror, setting up intricate webs of shell companies, cryptocurrency and investments.
The US estimates that its secret portfolios could be worth as much as $1billion (£790 million).
Israel even played a role in financing Hamas, it emerged last month.
The New York Times reported that suitcases containing tens of millions of Qatar-provided dollars were shuttled into Gaza by Israeli officials for years.
The plan, signed off by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, was said to be a failed attempt to “buy quiet” in the enclave.
