The American Bloomberg website quoted informed sources as saying that the European Union intends to impose sanctions on the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) because of its attack on Israel, in reference to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation.
The sources stated that European sanctions have been agreed upon and will be announced on Monday at the foreign ministers’ meeting, considering that the sanctions come in response to the attack launched by the Palestinian resistance, led by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Hamas movement – on Israel on October 7. the past.
Last December, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that his proposal to impose sanctions on Hamas had broad support from ministers, but some stressed the importance of imposing punitive measures on extremist Israeli settlers involved in violent attacks in the West Bank.
On Tuesday, European Union member states included the head of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, on their sanctions list.
Sinwar will be subject to freezing his funds and other financial assets in the 27 member states of the European Union, and companies and institutions operating in the European Union will be prohibited from providing funds and economic resources to him.
The European Commission said – in a statement – “The Council decided to add one person to the terrorist list.”
Taher Al-Nono, media advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, accused the European Union of bias, calling for an end to what he said was its “double standards policy.”
Reuters quoted Al-Nono as saying, “These sanctions are ridiculous and ridiculous, and everyone knows that brother Yahya Al-Sinwar does not have financial accounts, neither in Palestine nor outside it.”
He added, “Such a decision will have no value against Hamas, but the idea of imposing sanctions on the leaders of the resistance and Hamas that resist the occupation as a right guaranteed by international law is bias towards the occupation.”
On the other hand, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz welcomed the European Union’s “just and moral” decision, as he described it.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that, as of Wednesday, left 24,448 martyrs and 61,504 injured, and caused the displacement of more than 85% (about 1.9 million people) of the Strip’s population, according to the Palestinian authorities and the United Nations. .