Hamas’s Armed Wing Stops Accepting Bitcoin Donations (Report)
The armed wing of the alleged terrorist organization Hamas – the Al-Qassam Brigades – will reportedly stop accepting donations in bitcoin out of concern for the safety of contributors.
Israeli authorities have previously estimated that the entity financed some of its military campaigns through cryptocurrencies. The Ministry of Defense has seized over 100 digital wallets linked to the group in recent years.
Go back to traditional methods
A local media reported that the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement will no longer solicit contributions via bitcoin: a method the organization had used for years. The main reason behind the move appears to be the improved protection of donors.
“This comes out of concern for the safety of donors and to spare them harm,” Al-Qassam Brigades explained.
Gaza economist Mohammad Abu Jayyab mean the organization has stopped crypto donations, fearing that Israel’s agencies could identify the people who transferred funds this way or reach their wallets. He also suggested that the Al-Qassam Brigades aimed to switch to traditional funding methods or figure out more advanced alternatives.
According to a number of countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, Hamas is a terrorist group, which means that it is illegal to provide them with funds, training or any kind of military support.
US authorities halted the combined efforts of Hamas, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to raise funds via digital assets, confiscating $2 million worth of crypto in 2020.
According to Reuters, the Palestinian organization received the most bitcoin donations from the Muslim world, the majority of which support the fight against Israel.
Israel’s counterattack
Several sources have claimed over the years that Hamas has used cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin and Tether, in its acts of terrorism. Israel’s National Counter-Terrorist Financing Agency conducted a successful operation against the group in 2021, seize 84 digital wallets linked to it.
London-based blockchain analytics provider – Elliptic – determined that these addresses received over $7.7 million worth of crypto. However, it pointed out that not all funds should be linked to terrorism:
– Some of the addresses are part of larger services, and not all of these funds can be linked to terrorism. When calculating this figure, we excluded funds sent to addresses known to be used by services such as exchanges to receive deposits from multiple users.”
The Ministry of Defense in Israel joined forces with the police and the military to carry out another operation against Hamas a year later. Collaboration confiscated 30 cryptocurrency wallets from 12 accounts belonging to al-Mutahadun: an exchange that allegedly funded the Palestinian Authority.
