A “sanctions regime against Hamas” will be adopted by the European Foreign Affairs Council on Monday January 22, 2024, in Brussels. “It is a sanctions regime which targets individuals and transfers of funds,” announced the deputy spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Christophe Lemoine, during a press briefing at the Quai d’Orsay, this Thursday. January 18, 2024.
It targets Hamas and some of its cadres involved in the unprecedented attacks on October 7 against southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, which left 1,140 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count. based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were also taken hostage, and 132 are still in Gaza, of whom at least 27 were killed, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Around a hundred were released during a truce at the end of November.
Yahya Sinouar already subject to a sanctions regime
The European Union had already added Yahya Sinouar, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement in Gaza, considered to be the architect of the October 7 attack against Israel, to its “terrorist” list on Tuesday.
Since this decision by the Twenty-Seven, Yahya Sinouar has been subject to a sanctions regime involving a freezing of funds and financial assets that he holds in the EU and a ban on any European operator from financing them.
The EU had previously included in December two senior officials from Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, on its blacklist sanctioning people or organizations involved in “terrorist” acts.
Hamas, as an organization, is already part of it. The Palestinian Islamist movement is considered a terrorist group by the EU but also by many countries including the United States, Canada and Israel.
This article is originally published on ouest-france.fr
