A Hebrew newspaper spoke about what it called “the necessity of financially destroying” the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, in order to “defeat it” in the current battle that began on October 7, 2023.

From the perspective of researching the funding that contributes to spending on the activities of the Hamas and Hezbollah movements against the Israeli occupation, the Hebrew newspaper “Calcalist” conducted an interview with Shlomit Wegman Ratner, whom it described as “the international expert in the financial war against terrorism.”

The expert spoke about the necessity of destroying the financing system for both the Palestinian and Lebanese organizations in order to remove the threat.

She believed that destroying Hamas financially is no less important than destroying it militarily, if not more so. She also pointed to the sources of funding and the challenges facing international working teams in tracking and besieging it.

An international effort

In an arrogance that anticipates the outcome of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, the newspaper asked expert Ratner: “Perhaps Hamas is indeed now part of the past.” But what can be done to prevent Hezbollah from gaining more economic power?

Here she answered him: “Unfortunately, Hamas is not finished yet. It is still an organization with a strong and very important infrastructure.”

She continued: “Military collapse is necessary, but it is not sufficient in itself. We need Hamas to collapse financially as well,” warning that “without blowing it up financially, it will remain.”

She added: “Of course, Hamas’s money is not kept in cash, and as is the case with Iran currently, and with ISIS previously, there is a lot of work required to determine where it stores its money and then confiscate it and freeze its accounts in various banks.”

She stressed that “this is something that Israel cannot do alone, and requires an integrated international effort.”

She pointed out that she was part of the team that previously worked on identifying and tracking ISIS accounts, as part of the work of the Financial Action Task Force in the war against it.

The Financial Action Task Force is an international task force tasked with tracking crime and the funds of terrorist organizations.

Ratner continued: “Every four months, we would issue a report to intelligence agencies around the world. “We have created global pressure that has exposed the entire financial infrastructure of ISIS, from banks in Iraq, to the antiquities trade, to cryptocurrencies.”

Economic blockade

The newspaper asked: “There is a feeling that the economic blockade always comes late, and not at the right time. What will we do today regarding Hamas and Hezbollah?”

Here, the expert criticized the previous perspective in dealing with Hamas, as she said: “We could have been more active regarding it if there had been a prior vision throughout the world and inside Israel that this is a terrorist organization that must be fought by all means until it is eliminated,” according to her claim.

She pointed out that “fighting it financially was not a priority for anyone,” but on the contrary, the prevailing vision was to “feed Hamas financially.” She blamed this vision for what led to events on October 7, 2023.

As for Hezbollah, the expert says that it “possesses much more money than Hamas, and its sources of funding are more diverse.” “So it takes a global coalition to confront it financially.”

She explained that this is what “creates difficulty for international task forces established to combat economic crimes, whose focus is often on very large amounts.”

Funding sources

She explained the difference with economic crime by saying that “criminals launder black money to turn it into white money, while in terrorism the situation is exactly the opposite.”

White money, which often comes from donations or humanitarian purposes, becomes black. That's why tools designed to deal with crime are not appropriate, she says.

The Hebrew newspaper Calcalist also asked about the cost of the Hamas attack on October 7, as well as about the movement’s sources of funding.

Regarding the cost, Shlomit Wegman-Ratner claimed that “the Hamas attack is in fact a costly event, and its direct and indirect expenses may reach huge sums that may reach the level of billions of dollars.”

This starts with multiple training exercises over long periods, and the huge amount of weapons, in addition to the tunnels that were prepared in advance.

As for the sources of funding, the expert reported that they are many, most notably Iran, which is suffering from a difficult economic situation.

She continued: “Despite this, it annually transfers between 30 and 100 million dollars to Hamas.” This is in addition to “Qatar, which transfers between 200 and 450 million dollars annually,” and this is “in addition to the taxes paid by the residents of Gaza.”

Source: Aqlam Horra