Inside Hamas’s sprawling financial empire

Viewed from one of Istanbul’s glitziest restaurants, the Bosporus looks sublime. The venue is a favoured haunt of mandarins, businessmen, minor celebrities—and Hamas’s financiers. A man on whom America has imposed sanctions for funding the Islamist group describes his various board seats. “It’s ridiculous,” he says of America’s accusation. Eventually, though, comes an admission. “Now, if you’re asking what our employees do with their own money, why would I know?”

Hamas has three sources of power: its physical force inside Gaza, the reach of its ideas and its income. Since Hamas’s attacks on October 7th, Israel has killed more than 12,000 Palestinians in Gaza in seeking to wreck the first. But Israel’s declared goal of destroying Hamas for good requires its financial base to be dismantled, too. Very little of this sits in Gaza. Instead, it is overseas in friendly countries. Furnished with money-launderers, mining companies and much else, Hamas’s financial empire is reckoned to bring in more than $1bn a year. Having been painstakingly crafted to avoid Western sanctions, it may be out of reach for Israel and its allies.