Hamas leaders have been charged over 7 October attacks by US

In connection with the group’s lethal attack in Israel on October 7, of last year, the United States has brought charges against Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and a number of other notable members of the Palestinian organization.
Using weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to finance terrorism, and killing US citizens are among the seven counts against six Hamas members that the Justice Department announced it was indicting.
Both the historic attack on southern Israel over a year ago and decades’ worth of alleged Hamas strikes are covered in the criminal case.

Even though Sinwar is thought to be hidden in tunnels beneath the ground and up to three of the individuals named in the indictment are dead, this is the first move that US law enforcement is taking to hold the masterminds of the October 7 assault accountable. Mr. Garland stated that the defendants were in charge of “financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States” in a video statement on Tuesday.

The group also “led Hamas’s efforts to destroy the state of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim”. He brought attention to the October 7th onslaught by Hamas on Israel, during which the organization “murdered entire families” in “the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust”. “They killed little children and they killed the old. They turned rape and genital mutilation into weapons of sexual aggression against women.” He went on to say that the organization “perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust” and “murdered over 1,200 people” during the attack.

Along with Mohammed Deif and Ali Baraka, other charged Hamas leaders include former leader Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Mashaal, the group’s commander outside of Gaza and the West Bank, and Marwan Issa, the organization’s deputy chief of its military branch. The charges include conspiracy to finance terrorism, conspiracy to bomb a public place and cause death, and conspiracy to provide material support for terrorist acts that cause death. According to the charge filed by the justice department, each of the “defendants is either deceased or remains at large.”

In recent months, there have been reports of the deaths of Haniyeh, Issa, and Deif in attacks that Israel has either claimed or been linked to. In his statements on Tuesday, the attorney general brought up the death of 23-year-old US-Israeli captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin last week. In his remarks on Tuesday, the attorney general mentioned the death of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a US-Israeli hostage, last week. He also mentioned the 42 other US citizens who were slain in the attack on October 7 and the 10 hostages who were held captive.

“We are looking into Hersh’s murder as well as all of Hamas’ heinous American killings as acts of terrorism,” Mr. Garland stated. The group could get a maximum sentence of life in prison or perhaps death if found guilty. As per the US partner of the BBC, CBS News, an unidentified justice department official told them that although the charges were filed in February, they were not made public until Tuesday to avoid any potential for US authorities to apprehend any of the defendants. President Joe Biden denounced the Hamas murder of Goldberg-Polin over the weekend.

Mr. Biden declared, “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes, make no mistake about it.” Amid worries over possible weapons usage in Gaza, the UK has defended its decision to prohibit some arms supplies to Israel. On October 7, Hamas launched an offensive on southern Israel, murdering over 1,200 people and kidnapping another 251. Since then, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has claimed the lives of over 40,000 people, according to the health ministry of Hamas, which controls the area.