Hamas has even experimented in recent years with using cryptocurrencies to evade government surveillance. While the full extent of its efforts is unknown, Israel as recently as mid-October continues to freeze Hamas-linked crypto accounts.
Even with these diversified income streams, the money itself never has to touch Gaza. Hamas and its allies, like most sophisticated terrorist groups, have built a complicated web of global money-laundering streams with the assistance of the Iranians. It is probably impossible for forensic accountants to unravel completely Hamas’s financial dealings. The U.S. Treasury Department is playing financial whack-a-mole; last month, it sanctioned several Hamas investment portfolio managers living in the West Bank, Sudan, Turkey, Algeria, and Qatar. A further wrinkle is that if, say, Israel cuts off the P.A.’s $1.7 billion to Gaza, it will negatively impact the very people who would serve as the governing backbone of a potential post-Hamas Gaza.
It also doesn’t really cost that much to carry out a terrorist attack. The September 11, 2001, attacks cost Al Qaeda under half a million dollars, according to the 9/11 Commission—with the hijackers even returning $26,000 to an Emirati facilitator right before the strike because they didn’t need it. While it remains unclear how much it cost Hamas financially for its October 7 attack on Israel, the terrorist group almost certainly has enough flexibility to weather whatever financial penalties are coming. And if not, their funders have more than enough money to compensate them for their losses.