The top Hamas political leader oversees a vast financial network while living hundreds of miles from the chaos and violence in Gaza, often traveling freely to represent the militant group before world leaders across the region. Already under U.S. economic sanctions since 2018, Ismail Haniyeh, 61, now faces an intensifying economic assault from the West as part of the wider war against Hamas. Since the group’s murderous Oct. 7 attack on Israel, U.S.
officials have vowed to crack down on Hamas’s financial network just as Israel vows to eradicate it militarily, with senior Treasury Department officials traveling to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Europe as part of a coordinated push to target the militant group’s funding sources. Senior Treasury officials have also accused Hamas’s top leaders of living “in luxury.” Haniyeh is based in Qatar, a U.S.