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US Hamas indictment includes ‘unknown person’ expected to be arrested in New York
The 38-page indictment, now unsealed from the Southern District of New York, does in fact charge the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, and six of his top deputies with seven different counts.
They range from conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organisation, conspiracy to murder US nationals and even violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
It seems unlikely that any of the leaders in Hamas are going to leave Gaza and travel to a country that has an extradition treaty with the United States.
But if you read through the indictment, it talks about “known and unknown” persons, “at least one of whom is expected to be first brought to and arrested in the Southern District of New York”. We have no information on who that could possibly be, so we’ll keep track of that.
Now, why would the US announce this indictment, when with the help of Egypt and Qatar, it is trying to negotiate a ceasefire deal?
The White House does not tell the US Justice Department who to investigate and the Justice Department, in my experience, doesn’t tend to even tell officials in the White House who they are investigating.
US’s charges against Hamas leaders
- The Justice Department has announced criminal charges against Hamas’s top leaders over their roles in the October 7 attacks on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people, including 40 Americans.
- The complaint names six defendants, three of whom are deceased.
- The living defendants are Hamas’s chief Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be in hiding in Gaza; Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Doha and heads the group’s diaspora office; and Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon.
- The deceased defendants are former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in July in Tehran; military wing chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel said it killed in a July attack; and deputy commander Marwan Issa, who Israel said it killed in a March strike.
- The seven-count complaint includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, conspiracy to murder US nationals and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death.
- US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the six men – “armed with weapons, political support, and funding from the Government of Iran, and support from [Hezbollah] – have led Hamas’s efforts to destroy the state of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim”.
- US prosecutors brought charges against the six men in February but kept the complaint under seal in hopes of capturing Haniyeh, according to a Justice Department official. The department decided to go public with the charges after Haniyeh’s death.
US’s charges against Hamas shows it is not an honest broker in talks
Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, said the US’s decision to charge Hamas’s top leaders hurts its role as a mediator in the ongoing conflict.
The charges come “as no surprise”, Khouri told Al Jazeera from the US city of Boston.
“The United States has been heavily, enthusiastically and vigorously supporting Israel in its current actions in Gaza – in what the UN calls a plausible genocide. And it has long opposed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, designating them as terrorist groups,” he said.
That view, however, is challenged by much of the world, Khouri said, “especially in light of the UN affirmation and the Geneva protocols of 1949 saying that people who are subjugated under foreign occupation have the right to defend themselves by all means including armed resistance”.
More significantly, the move also shows “the United States is very keen to hold Hamas responsible for its actions but has no similar desire to hold Israel accountable for its actions,” Khouri said. “And therefore, in the eyes of most of the world, the United States is not an honest broker, but is complicit in the Israeli genocide.”
US must apply law equally to all, Hamas and Israel alike
Khouri at the University of Beirut told Al Jazeera that it’s not clear how the US’s decision to charge Hamas’s top leaders could affect the ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire.
“It’s hard to tell… They’re negotiating indirectly with Hamas, while trying to pulverise it through Israeli actions on the ground. And now through [these] judicial actions,” he said. “It also detracts from the United States’s credibility as a mediator. But the problem is, there’s no other mediator that the Israelis will trust. So you have to deal with the United States.”
He also said the US was behaving like an “imperial colonial power” by refusing to apply the law equally to all parties accused of violations.
“We have to keep pushing back against it and asking that the principles of international law be applied equitably to all parties who may be accused of war crimes or terrorism. This is something we’ve been calling for for decades,” Khouri said.
“Take any Arab party you don’t like, Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO, anybody. Take them to court but also take the Israelis to court. The evidence for what the Israelis have done in Palestine – not just now – but in the last 70-80 years, destroying villages and throwing people out and ethnic cleansing on a mass scale is massive. But the US will not take this to court."
