Israel is continuing its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that his country will not stop “until complete victory.” The conflict between the warring factions has been going on for more than two months. A report by The New York Times (NYT) on Saturday (Dec 16) said that Israel knew about Hamas’ vast financial network in 2018 but took no action.
As per the report, Israeli intelligence got its hands on secret documents that laid out details about what amounted to a private equity fund that Hamas used to finance its operations. The documents, which were pilfered from a senior Hamas official’s computer, listed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The documents were a potential roadmap for choking off Hamas’s money and thwarting its plans, the report said, adding that Israeli agents who obtained the records shared them inside their government and the United States. But nothing happened.
A failure to prioritise financial intelligence
NYT reported that Hamas controlled mining, chicken farming, and road-building companies in Sudan, twin skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a property developer in Algeria, and a real estate firm listed on the Turkish stock exchange. However, none of these companies named in the documents faced Israeli or American sanctions.
Both Israeli and American officials failed to prioritise financial intelligence which showed that tens of millions of dollars flowed from these companies to Hamas at the same time the Palestinian militant group was buying new weapons and preparing an attack.
Officials said that this money helped Hamas build up its military infrastructure and also helped the group lay the groundwork for the Oct 7 attack.
Speaking to the publication, Udi Levy, a former chief of Mossad’s economic warfare division, said that everyone talked about the failures of intelligence on the Oct 7 attack but none talked about the failure to stop the money.
“It’s the money — the money — that allowed this,” Levy said.
‘Netanyahu disinterested in Hamas’ portfolio’
Amid hopes that the discovery of Hamas’ financial network would be disrupted by Israel and the US, the officials at the top levels of both governments were focused on imposing a series of sanctions on Iran. The NYT report said that neither country prioritised Hamas at the time.
Israel believed at that time that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. Udi Levy was part of a team investigating terror finances called Task Force Harpoon, which tracked Hamas’ money network over many years. In 2015, the team found out what it called the militant group’s secret investment portfolio.
Levy told NYT that he recalled briefing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the portfolio. “But he didn’t care that much about it,” the former top Mossad official added.
(With inputs from agencies)
