The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday night that it has indicted six Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, for their involvement in the October 7 massacres.
A Justice Department official noted that the charges were initially filed in February but were kept sealed in hopes of capturing then-political leader Ismail Haniyeh and bringing him to trial in the U.S.
The indicted leaders include three currently living and three deceased Hamas members, though all were alive at the time of the indictment. The living leaders are Yahya Sinwar, recently elected as Hamas’s political leader and currently in hiding in Gaza; Khaled Meshaal, who heads the group’s diaspora office and is based in Doha, Qatar; and Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon.
The deceased leaders are former political leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Tehran in late July; former military leader Mohammed Deif, killed in an IDF airstrike on July 13 and believed to be a key planner of the October 7 attacks alongside Sinwar; and Marwan Issa, a high-ranking military figure eliminated in a March airstrike by Israel.
The federal complaint, filed in New York City, includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens. It also implicates Iran and Hezbollah for their support of Hamas.
The decision to unseal the charges is believed to be related to the recent murder of six Israeli hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual American-Israeli citizen.
The unsealing of the charges could lead to concrete actions against Hamas, such as asset seizures, including cryptocurrency wallets associated with the leaders, and potential pressure on Qatar to extradite Meshaal, who resides there.
Qatar, which has hosted Hamas leaders for about a decade and also hosts two U.S. military bases, is a key U.S. ally in the region. Its support for Hamas has been a contentious issue for Israeli leaders, who have avoided taking action against Hamas in Qatar to prevent jeopardizing U.S. interests in the Gulf nation.