Following the brutal murder of six Israeli hostages, among them 23-year-old American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, federal prosecutors on Tuesday unsealed criminal charges against the terrorists who are responsible.
“The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “On October 7th, Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants, murdered nearly 1200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians.
“This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered an additional six people they had kidnapped and held captive for nearly a year, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23 year old Israeli American. We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’ brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.”
“For decades, Hamas and its leadership have dedicated themselves to the eradication of the State of Israel, and to murdering, maiming, and brutalizing anyone — including dozens of Americans — who stood in their way,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York.
The seven-count sealed complaint, originally filed in February, charges Sinwar and other senior members of Hamas with “the carrying out of a terrorist attack against nationals of the United States.” The charges include conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to provide material support for acts of terrorism, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to bomb a place of public use.
In the wake of the brutal execution of the hostages, President Joe Biden has pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to make more concessions in the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
Biden’s actions have been heavily criticized.
Former Netanyahu adviser Caroline Glick told Fox News Digital, “From the outset of the war, U.S. pressure has been exerted on Israel alone. The war would have been over months ago if the U.S. had permitted Israel to lay siege on Gaza and pressured Egypt to permit Gazans to either shelter in Egypt for the duration of the war or seek shelter in third countries by exiting Gaza through Egypt. Rather than stand with Israel, the U.S. preserved Hamas in power by demanding that Israel keep Gaza fully supplied through humanitarian aid which has been distributed, or ransacked, by Hamas and so preserved Hamas in power.”
“The U.S. pressure for a hostage deal is not directed against Hamas, which is holding the hostages, and as we saw over the weekend, executing them in cold blood. It is directed solely against Israel. The Biden-Harris administration’s pressure is not geared towards rescuing the hostages. It is geared towards rescuing up to 20% of the hostages in exchange for a full cessation of the war, while Hamas is still in charge of Gaza and capable of reconstituting its terror forces in short order if Israel relinquishes its military control over Gaza’s international border with Egypt.”
David Friedman, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, told Fox News Digital, “On a day when Israel is mourning, literally weeping, for its murdered hostages, Biden should be saving his criticism for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, not Israel’s democratically elected leader.”
The New York Times reports on the unsealed federal charges against the leaders of Hamas. Here’s the start of the story:
Federal prosecutors charged Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and five senior members of the group with planning and carrying out years of terrorist attacks in Israel, including the Oct. 7 massacre, according to a sweeping complaint unsealed on Tuesday.
The criminal complaint, originally filed in New York in February, implicated two other senior members of Hamas not previously thought to be directly involved in the attacks. It also listed the number of Americans believed to have died at 43.
The other leaders named are Ismail Haniyeh, who had overseen Hamas’s political office in Qatar; Muhammad Deif, the commander of the group’s military wing; Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of the group’s military wing; Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official based in Beirut; and Khaled Meshal, a former political leader of the group who remains a top official. Mr. Deif and Mr. Issa were killed in Israeli airstrikes during the fighting in Gaza. Mr. Haniyeh, a top negotiator in cease-fire talks, was assassinated in Iran after a bomb was covertly smuggled into the guesthouse where he was staying.