The Department of Justice is interviewing the survivors and families of the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre as it tries to build a case against Hamas’ financiers for supporting the terror group, according to a new report.
US prosecutors and FBI agents have been speaking to former hostages and the families of US citizens kidnapped and killed in the terrorist attack in recent months, sources told Bloomberg.
The interviews are part of a DOJ probe examining Hamas’ financial network and looking into whether funds from Iran or Qatar were used to support the terror group’s military wing, one of the people familiar with the investigation said.
Officials are also investigating if any US financial institutions or assets ever enabled Hamas, which carried out a brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others.
As per US law, foreign governments can be held liable, in certain circumstances, for deaths or injuries caused by acts of terrorism by providing resources for the terrorists.
The DOJ declined to comment on the alleged investigation.
About 31 Americans were killed during the terrorist attack, with five hostages believed to still be alive in the Gaza Strip, including Israeli Americans Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra and Keith Siegel.
Hamas is believed to also have the bodies of three other Israeli Americans said to have been killed on Oct. 7: Itay Chen, Judy Weinstein and Gad Haggai.
During the early months of the war, Hamas released American hostages Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie Raanan, as well as 4-year-old Avigail Mor Idan.
It remains unclear which of the survivors and family members have spoken to investigators about their experiences.
Some of those who did sit down with prosecutors and agents provided videos and text messages to build a timeline of what happened on Oct. 7, sources told Bloomberg.
A case against Hamas’ financiers would likely play out against the lawsuits filed against Iran over the years for its support of terrorist groups.
Senior leaders with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were indicted in February for selling oil to foreign governments to fund terrorist activities, with the DOJ seizing more than $108 million from the defendants, as well as more than half a million barrels of fuel.
Earlier this month, both Iran and Syria were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by the victims of the Oct. 7 attack.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of more than 125 plaintiffs in federal court in New York, is seeking at least $4 billion in damages for “a coordination of extrajudicial killings, hostage takings, and related horrors for which the defendants provided material support and resources.”