US sanctions 'sham charities' funding Hamas, PFLP

On Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury sanctioned several individuals and “sham charities” for providing financial support to Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

“Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning five individuals and five sham charities located abroad that are prominent financial supporters of Hamas’s Military Wing and its terrorist activities,” a press release from the Treasury stated.

It added that it “is also targeting a separate fraudulent charity linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).”

Those put under sanction include Al Weam Charitable Society, Filistin Vafki, El Baraka Association for Charitable and Humanitarian Work, Israa Charitable Foundation Netherlands, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Associazione Benefica La Cupola d’Oro, and five individuals involved in some of these organizations.

The Treasury Department stated that “Hamas and the PFLP have a long history of abusing the NPO and charitable sectors.”

“Some of these NPOs and charities are entirely co-opted and run by these designated terrorists, with their links to Hamas and the PFLP intentionally obscured in order to evade sanctions,” the statement said. “This allows Hamas and the PFLP to exploit the sympathy and generosity of the international public at the expense of the Palestinian people.”

The group accused by the U.S. of supporting the PFLP is Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.

As the Times of Israel reports, “Israel, too, has alleged that Addameer funds terrorism, a claim that the United Nations previously said it could not support with compelling evidence.”

In fact, the report notes, Israel stormed Addameer’s offices in Ramallah in 2022, after which the UN praised Addameer’s work.

Addameer is doing “critical human rights, humanitarian and development work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the UN said at the time.