The European states and the United States are coordinating their efforts to block Hamas’s financial resources, US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo explained to a small group of journalists, including EUROPE, in Brussels on Monday 30 October.
“I’m in Europe this week to talk about coordinating with our European allies the financial response to Hamas’s brutal killing of more than 1,400 Israelis on 7 October, and the ongoing activities that Hamas is undertaking to go after the State of Israel”, he explained, adding that he was discussing with the Europeans what could be done using financial tools such as sanctions.
Mr Adeyemo also highlighted the anti-Hamas coalition proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron. “My focus is on the financial aspects of this coalition and how we can build a coalition that will allow us to stop Hamas from being able to get the money they need to fight their unjustifiable fight against the State of Israel”, he said.
According to a senior US Treasury official, the EU, in collaboration with the US and other members of the international community, can do a great deal to tackle Hamas financially. “Hamas is not a representative of the Palestinian people. In many ways, they are holding those Palestinian people hostage, using them as human shields, but also setting up charities that they’re using to try and disguise their funding nature”, he explained. According to this senior official, the EU, the United States and the United Kingdom must tackle these entities and cut off Hamas’s access to funding.
He was of the opinion that it was necessary to move quickly, recalling that after 7 October, Hamas had launched a public relations campaign to try to raise money. “We have to go quickly to demonstrate to people that trying to fund these groups is not going to work”, he stressed.
Asked about the funds available to Hamas, the senior US Treasury official said that the 7 October attack was not a very sophisticated or expensive attack, adding that the missiles used by the terrorist organisation had been accumulated over the years. “Much of the violence was done by people getting through fences, going through tunnels, using guns and knives to go after people and terrorise them in person. So we’re talking about millions (of euros, editor’s note), not billions”, said the senior civil servant.
On Friday 27 October, the United States adopted a second series of sanctions against Hamas. The senior official said that the United States was working closely with Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries to combat terrorist financing. “A big piece of this for us is working with countries in the region to use our sanctions, and for them to also use their law enforcement authorities to go after financiers (of Hamas, editor’s note) or different networks that may exist in the region”, including in Iran, he added.
Asked about EU-US cooperation against Hamas, the European External Action Service was preparing its answers to our questions at the time of going to press.
Member States split at the United Nations
On the evening of Friday 27 October, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by 121 votes to 14 with 44 abstentions, a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza and urging all parties to comply immediately and fully with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law.
The Member States were divided during the vote, with 8 voting in favour, 15 abstaining and 4 voting against. Belgium, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain voted in favour; Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Greece, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden and Denmark abstained; and Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Hungary voted against the resolution.
See the resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/9bx
For his part, the High Representative of the Union, Josep Borrell, said that a pause in hostilities was “urgently needed” to allow access for humanitarian aid. On X (formerly Twitter), he said that the “desperate” situation of the people of Gaza was “against international humanitarian law”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)