The current ongoing conflict and series of deadly attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel have taken another turn. Recently, Israel’s cyber unit made a significant collaboration with Binance as they found multiple cryptocurrency accounts linked to the terrorist organization Hamas.
Identification and deactivation of multiple Crypto accounts
As of Tuesday, October 10, 2023, Israel’s cybercrime unit, in collaboration with Binance, has successfully seized multiple crypto accounts linked to the Hamas terrorist organization. This operation was initiated in conjunction with the Ministry of Defense, the Israel Security Agency, and national intelligence agencies.
During this operation, Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, played an important role in identifying and deactivating these terrorist-linked accounts and supported the Israeli authorities. A Binance spokesperson stated, “We are committed to supporting the safety and security of the blockchain ecosystem and the global community through our proactive work.”
Another statement by Israeli police garnered everyone’s attention, as these seized accounts were created by Hamas and have been actively used to raise funds and support terrorist organizations through multiple social media platforms since Saturday. In a separate operation in collaboration with Israel’s Police Cyber Unit and British police, a Barclays Bank account in the UK, which was also used to collect donations with the same motive, was successfully seized.
This is not the first time that a terrorist organization has made use of cryptocurrencies to fund their activities. In 2019, Hamas called for its initial crypto donations to bypass international sanctions. In a separate investigation, starting in 2021, Israeli authorities seized over 190 Binance accounts. However, the majority of these accounts belonged to Palestinian firms with affiliations to Hamas.
Hamas’s Cryptocurrency holdings
According to the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, over the past few years, Hamas has securely managed to acquire tens of thousands of dollars through crypto.
However, in April of the same year, the military branch of Hamas announced that they had shut down all crypto donation programs. But a week later, the Israeli government seized nearly $1.7 million worth of crypto linked to Hezbollah and the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, both of which were designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.
Amid these ongoing deadly attacks on Israel, the local leader of the crypto community has initiated a program called “Crypto Aid Israel,” aimed at raising funds to assist citizens displaced due to the ongoing conflict. This community uses a multi-signature wallet to accept multiple cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC.
Earlier this year, as reported by Todayq News, during the war between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine received support in the form of nearly $70 million in crypto donations, with most of these donations being made in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
