The European Union on Friday froze assets and imposed visa bans on a number of companies and individuals accused of funding the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Brussels said.
These sanctions were the second round of sanctions imposed by the EU on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups following the Israeli attack on 7 October.
In total, the bloc has so far blacklisted 12 individuals and three entities linked to these terrorists.
An EU statement said the latest targets included three front companies used by key financier Hamza Abdelbaset to channel funds to the group, including Spanish real estate firm Al Zawiya Group, and two other Sudan-based companies.
It said the head of Hamas’s “foreign investment activities”, a money changer enabling money transfers from pro-Iran forces, and an official in charge of the group’s “Charitable Institutions Association” also came under attack.
The EU said it was also imposing sanctions on Ali Morshed Shirazi, a senior official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard who oversaw Tehran’s ties with Palestinian groups in Lebanon.
Top Hamas official Maher Rebhi Obaid, who is “responsible for instructing Hamas terrorist activists in the West Bank”, has also been added to the list.
Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, though the military says 42 have been killed.
In response, Israel launched a devastating military campaign in Gaza, a Hamas stronghold, that has killed at least 37,765 people, most of them civilians, according to health ministry figures in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
EU diplomats said the latest sanctions on Hamas should now lead the EU to impose a second round of measures targeting violent Israeli extremists in the West Bank.
The 27-nation European Union – which has struggled to take a unified stance on the Gaza war – in April imposed sanctions on four “extremist” Israeli settlers and two groups accused of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
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