The United States has charged Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and several other senior figures in the Palestinian group with involvement in a deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
The Justice Department said it had indicted six Hamas members on charges including murdering US citizens, conspiring to finance terrorism and using weapons of mass destruction.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hamas had “committed the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust” in attacks last year in southern Israel.
It is the first step by US law enforcement to hold accountable the ringleaders of the attack, although three of the people named in the indictment are dead and Sinwar is believed to be hiding in tunnels somewhere under the Gaza Strip.
In a video statement on Tuesday, Mr Garland said the group was responsible for “funding and directing a decades-long campaign to kill American citizens and endanger the security of the United States”.
The group also “leads Hamas’ efforts to destroy the state of Israel and kill civilians to achieve that goal.”
He noted Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, in which the group “murdered entire families”.
“They kill old people and children. They use sexual violence as a weapon against women.”
He added that in the attack, the group “killed more than 1,200 people” and “carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust”.
Other Hamas leaders charged include former leader Ismail Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, deputy head of the group’s armed wing; Khaled Mashaal, who led the group outside Gaza and the West Bank; and Mohammed Deif and Ali Baraka.
Charges include conspiracy to commit a public bombing causing death, conspiracy to finance terrorism and providing material support for acts of terrorism causing death.
The Justice Department’s complaint notes that all “defendants are either dead or still at large.”
According to reports, Haniyeh, Issa and Deif have all been killed in Israeli strikes over the past year.
In his remarks on Tuesday, the attorney general cited the killing of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, last week, along with 40 other Americans killed in the October 7 attack and eight people taken hostage.
“We are investigating the murder of Hersh, and every brutal murder of an American by Hamas, as an act of terrorism,” he said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray added that Hamas, which the United States classifies as a foreign terrorist organization, “has a long history of violence and its actions have increased terrorist threats in the United States and against American interests around the world.”
US officials also noted Iran’s role in supporting Hamas.
“Hamas attacks have played a key role in the Government of Iran’s global and regional campaign of support for terrorism aimed at weakening and ultimately destroying both the United States and Israel,” the Justice Department statement alleged.
If convicted, the group faces a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.
An unnamed Justice Department official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the charges were filed in February but were kept under wraps until Tuesday in case the US had a chance to arrest any of the defendants.
“After Haniyeh’s death and recent developments in the region, keeping those allegations under wraps is no longer necessary,” the official said.
Over the weekend, President Joe Biden condemned Hamas’ killing of Goldberg-Polin, calling it “tragic and reprehensible.”
“Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay a price for these crimes,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, the UK has defended the decision to ban the sale of certain weapons to Israel. because of concerns about how they could be used in Gaza.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in Israel’s ongoing military campaign since then, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
