Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, July 26, 2023. Photo: Reuters/Palestinian Presidents’ Office

The Biden administration on Friday announced new sanctions against Hamas financiers and funding networks in Iran and Turkey.

“[The] individuals targeted today play a key role in operating companies in Hamas’ investment portfolio in circumvention of the sanctions imposed by Treasury,” the US Treasury Department said in a statement. “Today’s designations also underscore the critical role Iran plays in providing financial, logistical, and operational support to Hamas.”

Among those sanctioned on Friday are Khaled Qaddoumi, who is Hamas’ representative in Iran, as well as three Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers who have trained members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. The US has designated all three Iran-backed groups — and the IRGC — as foreign terrorist organizations.

The Biden administration has said that Iran is “complicit” in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,400 people in Israel, but has not said what, if any, direct role the Iranian regime might have played beyond training and funding Hamas. 

“Iran is certainly complicit here,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday. “Without them, there is no Hamas. Without them, there is no Hezbollah. Without them, there [are] no militia groups firing rockets at our troops in Iraq and Syria.”

The US on Thursday carried out air strikes at IRGC munitions depots in Syria, near the Iraqi border, after it was revealed that Iranian-backed forces had carried out some 19 attacks since Oct. 17 against US forces in Iraq and Syria that injured 21 US service members.

US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a frequent critic of the Biden administration’s policies toward Iran, said in a statement on Friday that the US air strikes were insufficient to deter Iranian aggression in the region.

“Retaliation against expendable proxies — especially unoccupied proxy warehouses — merely validates Iran’s strategy to use proxies to attack Americans. They are laughing at us in Tehran,” Cotton said. “Iran will continue to target Americans until President [Joe] Biden gets serious about imposing severe costs on Iran.”

The Treasury Department on Friday also sanctioned a Turkish company, Trend GYO, that it described as a key component of Hamas’ global asset holdings with an estimated value at over $500 million.

In addition to tax revenues that it collects within Gaza, Hamas also funds its estimated $350 million military budget with tens of millions of dollars in annual donations from Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and other backers.

Qatar and Turkey, neither of which describe Hamas as a terrorist organization, also host senior Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, the chair of Hamas’ political bureau, who lives in Doha. Reuters reported on Friday that Qatar was willing to “reconsider” Hamas’ presence on its soil once efforts to secure the release of the more than 200 hostages that Hamas terrorists kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7 have been resolved.