The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released evidence Tuesday that it said showed direct payments from Iran to the Hamas terrorist organization and its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.
Envelopes with cash payments that the IDF says were from Iran to Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar. February 6, 2024 (IDF)
In an evening briefing, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said:
This evening, we are publishing some of the intelligence information found there by our forces – indicating a direct “connection” from Iran to Hamas and more so – to Yahya Sinwar. We found official Hamas documents from 2020 detailing the funds transferred by Iran between the years 2014 and 2020 to Hamas and to Sinwar. More than one hundred and fifty million dollars were transferred from Iran to Hamas. This is another example of how Iran exports terror across the Middle East. The terror that Iran exports and produces is a global problem. The intelligence information we find, we pass on to our partners around the world for verification.
In the same subterranean space, we also found a safe with banknotes and bags containing more than twenty million shekels in cash, as you can see in the blue and black bags addressed to a clear location [see above]. These amounts join tens of millions of shekels we located during the war in Hamas tunnels in cases filled with millions of dollars. This is a recurring phenomenon – large sums of cash, kept in organized compounds underground for the personal use of senior Hamas officials. Hamas leaders invested the money in their personal survival and that of their families underground.
It has long been known that Iran funds and arms Hamas, but the IDF chose to declassify direct evidence to show the role played by the Iranian regime, and to show the personal greed of Hamas’s leaders at a time when many Gazans are relying on aid for their basic necessities.
The IDF also wanted to show its penetration of Hamas’s physical infrastructure underground in the former stronghold of Khan Younis, where the terrorist leadership is though to be hiding.
The IDF made its revelations as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to land in Israel after visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar. In a press briefing in the Qatari capital of Doha, Blinken said Iran was responsible for the chaos in the region: “Attacks in Syria and Iraq, attacks on Israel from Lebanon, attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, attacks in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members, and of course, the attack on Israel on October 7th. Each and every one carried out by groups trained, armed, funded, and formed by Iran.”
Blinken will conclude his visit by meeting with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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