The US on Friday issued a second round of sanctions aimed at officials from Hamas and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, after 20 days of launching the Al-Aqsa Storm operation from the Gaza Strip against Israel.
The measures target additional assets in a Hamas investment portfolio and people facilitating sanctions evasion by Hamas-affiliated companies, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
A Gaza-based entity that Treasury said has served as a conduit for illicit Iranian funds to Hamas and the Palestinian Jihad group was also targeted, the department said. Iran backs Hamas and PIJ.
"We will not hesitate to take action to further degrade Hamas’s ability to commit horrific terrorist attacks by relentlessly targeting its financial activities and streams of funding," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo wrote, adding the sanctions aimed "to deny Hamas the ability to exploit the international financial system."
Adeyemo said some firms in the digital asset space were not doing enough to stop the flow of illicit finance.
Israel has bombarded the densely populated Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that Israel says killed some 1,400 people. The group took more than 200 hostages, some of them infants, in the assault.
The Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that at least 7,326 Palestinians including 3,038 children had been killed in Israel's retaliatory air strikes.
Friday's action freezes any US assets of the targeted groups and generally bars Americans from dealing with them, according to Reuters. Those who engage in certain transactions with them also risk being hit with sanctions.
The Treasury said it imposed sanctions on a Jordanian national who lives in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and who it said serves as the representative of Hamas in Iran, as well as IRGC Qods Force (IRGC-QF) officials who train and assist members of Hamas and other armed groups.
An Iran-based commander of the Saberin Special Forces Brigade of the IRGC Ground Force was also targeted. The US Treasury said the Saberin Brigade has deployed to Syria and has provided training to Hamas and members of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
Sudan and Spain-based companies were also targeted under Friday's measures, as were Türkiye -based shareholders of a company previously designated as part of the Hamas investment portfolio.
The United States has said that the Hamas portfolio of investments, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, includes companies operating in Türkiye, as well as Sudan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere.
This month's violence has led to fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East.
