Financial investigators in Israel have identified a significant increase in donations to Hamas-linked charities since the group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to current and former Israeli officials, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss sensitive national security information. “We saw a 70% increase in money given to Hamas-linked charities,” said Uzi Shaya, a former high-ranking officer in Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. In pure dollar amounts, this is equal to an increase of about $100 million in the past seven weeks, according to Israeli Defense and Foreign Ministry officials who requested anonymity. CNBC could not independently confirm the amount of money flowing to Hamas-linked charities. But current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Israel is capable of tracking this data. Since the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s retaliatory campaign has halted commerce in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, making international aid, which only recently started to flow, its only lifeline. In addition to waging war on the land, sea and air, Israel is battling on a fourth front: the international financial system. Stopping the inflows of money to Hamas is difficult, because the charity groups that collect the funds are scattered around the world and their structures can be fluid. Charities suspected of funneling money to Hamas often change their names, too, making them all the more difficult to monitor. “We don’t want to designate charities and cut off funding for things that are legitimate,” a Foreign Ministry official told CNBC. At Mossad, Shaya was responsible for stopping the flow of money to organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Following the October attacks, he returned to work in Israel’s security service, where he is once again following the money bound for organizations the U.S. and Israel consider terrorist groups. Traditionally, he said, foreign money has flowed into Hamas accounts from one of three main sources: Iran, the Islamic person-to-person banking system known as Hawala, and cryptocurrency.
Donations to Hamas-linked charities spike 70% since Oct. 7 attack, Israeli officials say
