The US has indicted Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and several other top officials of the Palestinian group over its 7 October attack on Israel, which killed several people.
The justice department announced that it was proceeding to prosecute six Hamas members for seven counts, and these included murder of persons that included dozens of US citizens, conspiracy to materialize terrorism, and utilization of weapons of mass destruction.
The criminal complaint focuses on the acts of Hamas as recent as last October and, prior to that, the attacks that have been going on for decades.
While it is the first time that US law enforcement tries to apprehend the actual masterminds of that attack, the move has been perceived by analysts as partly procedural, partly symbolic, simply because some referred to in the indictment are now rather unusable carcasses.
On the other hand, Sinwar continues to be in his hideout somewhere in tunnels in Gaza.
Merrick Garland, the US Attorney General, described the defendants on Tuesday as financiers and coordinators of a domestic terrorist organization that sought to assassinate American citizens and threaten the security of the country.
They also “directed” Hamas’s campaign to “annihilate the state of Israel and assassinate civilians in the process,” as stated by Mr. Garland.
He stressed the attack of Hamas on Israel on 7 October, in which “Hamas massacred entire families,” pointing to the “deadliest attack on Jews in the history of mankind after the Holocaust.”.
Mr. Garland said, ‘They murdered the elderly, and they murdered young children. They used sexual violence, especially in the form of rape and female genital mutilation against women’.
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He added:The Israeli PM asks ‘forgiveness’ over hostage deaths as protests continue.
The charges were filed in February but were not made public until Tuesday so as not to alert the US if the chance to arrest any of the accused an unidentified Justice Department official reported to CBS News, the BBC’s partner.
