WASHINGTON – The Justice Department charged six leaders of Hamas with the Oct. 7 attack on Israel for charges including conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens, conspiracy to support a terrorist organization and conspiracy to use bombs and weapons of mass destruction.
The six defendants named in charges unsealed Tuesday include: chief leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, Khaled Meshaal and Ali Baraka; and Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammad Al-Masri, Marwan Issa, all three of whom who have been declared or reported dead.
Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief, was assassinated in Tehran in July. Issa, the third-ranking Hamas leader, was reportedly killed in March. And Oct. 7 planner Al-Masri, known as Mohammad Deif, was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike in June.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the charges are for financing and directing a decades-long campaign to kill Americans and endanger the security of the United States. He said the Oct. 7 rampage was the group’s most violent, large-scale terrorist attack, including the murder of entire families and, Garland said, the weaponization of sexual violence against women.
“On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists murdered nearly 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians,” Garland said. “They perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
The charges were filed Feb. 1 and kept under seal to allow the U.S. to potentially take Haniyeh and other leaders into custody, according to a Justice Department official. After his death and other developments in the region, it was no longer necessary to keep those charges under seal, the official said.