The terrorist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, It has a multi-million dollar financial network that it controls from countries like Turkey is essential to financing its weapons arsenal and could have been attacked by Israel. However, The government of this country rejected the operation.
As Udi Levy, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer, revealed on the BBC’s Panorama program, the Israeli prime minister rejected the possibility of cutting off Hamas’s sources of income years before the group carried out the massacre last October, despite advising him to attack Hamas’ finances.
Levy, who headed the economic warfare division of Mossad – Israel’s intelligence and espionage agency – until 2016, said this would have stopped the Islamist group’s military rise.
Levy claimed that he had told Netanyahu many times that Israel had the means to dismantle Hamas “through financial means alone,” but never received a response from the prime minister to his suggestion.
Asked by the BBC whether he believed there was a connection between Netanyahu’s alleged opposition to the handling of Hamas’s finances and the October 7 attack, Levy responded bluntly.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “There is a very high probability that we would have restricted a lot of the money” against Gaza and that “the monster created by Hamas would probably not be the same monster we faced on October 7th.”
The Islamist organization would have needed “Not millions, but billions” Hundreds of kilometers of tunnels will be built under the Gaza Strip and a military force estimated at 30,000 men will be funded, according to the former senior intelligence official.
An investment portfolio controlled from Türkiye
Levy mentioned a specific funding source that he claims he tipped off to Netanyahu in 2014: a supposed multi-billion dollar investment portfolio that Israeli intelligence claimed controlled by Hamas and administered from Türkiye. Netanyahu decided not to act on this information, he said.
“We’re talking about Qatar and Iran as major sponsors,” Levy said, mentioning his discussions with Netanyahu, adding: “Turkey is in some ways even more important because it is a crucial focal point for Hamas in managing its financial infrastructure.”
The Panorama program analyzed documents dated shortly before the October 7 attack that reveal the size of Hamas’s investment portfolio.
These papers, which cover a period of eight months up to the beginning of 2018, show how Hamas makes some of its money, according to Israeli intelligence.
This is believed to be the case in the wallet around 40 companies from the Middle East and North Africaincluding some from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, the Gulf and Turkey.
The alleged investments include from Road construction, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to tourism, mining, gold prospecting and luxury real estate projects.
As of 2022, six of the companies listed in the documents are considered to be directly or indirectly owned or controlled by Hamas, according to the US Treasury Department, which has imposed sanctions on them, restricting their trading opportunities.
Next to each company listed in the portfolio book is the value of each Hamas-controlled holding. It is believed that much of this amount will be invested in real estate.