The United States announced criminal charges on Tuesday against Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas’ top leaders over their roles in planning, supporting and perpetrating the deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.
The charges against Yahya Sinwar, the group’s chief, and at least five others accuse them of orchestrating the Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans.
That attack triggered an Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians and laid waste to much of the territory.
“As outlined in our complaint, those defendants — 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,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The complaint names six defendants, three of whom are deceased. The living defendants are 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.
