EU sanctions six people for financing Hamas

The European Union on Friday added six individuals to an asset freeze and visa ban blacklist for financing Palestinian militant movement Hamas.

Brussels said those sanctioned included Musa Dudin, a senior member of Hamas’s investment office, along with financiers based in Sudan, Lebanon and Algeria.

“We are listing six people that have been participating in financing or facilitating the finance of Hamas,” a high-ranking EU official said.

“They will get their assets frozen in the European Union and they will get a travel ban to enter our territory.”

The EU is stepping up its sanctions on Hamas after the surprise October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the death of about 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages during the attacks, around 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza.

Israel has vowed to “annihilate” Hamas in response and its relentless air and ground offensive has killed at least 24,762 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, children and adolescents, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.

The militant movement’s Gaza political chief Yahya Sinwar was added to the EU’s “terrorist” blacklist on Tuesday.

Hamas is already listed as a “terrorist” organization by the EU.

The sanctions on those involved in financing Hamas come before EU foreign ministers hold separate talks in Brussels on Monday with their counterparts from Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Diplomats say EU countries are also in the process of drawing up sanctions against “extremist” Israeli settlers in the West Bank.