A decision purportedly made by Tel Aviv’s Magistrate Court permits the Israeli government to seize all the cryptocurrency in more than 150 digital wallets that it has blacklisted due to their alleged involvement in funding terrorist organizations.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stated that the court’s Dec. 15 decision has already permitted authorities to take an additional $33,500 from digital wallets connected to the Islamist militant group Hamas, according to local Israeli media sources on Dec. 18.
Before the court decision, the only digital assets that Israeli authorities could legally collect were those that had direct links to terrorist activity; other cash in the same wallets were not permitted. Authorities took $750,000 from the wallets in December 2021.
Several nations and international organizations, including the United States, European Union, Israel, and United Kingdom, classify Hamas as a terrorist group in whole or in part. Hamas has been the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip in Palestine since 2007.
In an effort to circumvent financial isolation and restrictions, Hamas started urging its followers to transfer money using Bitcoin (BTC) via the messaging service Telegram in January 2019.
Gantz already authorized security forces to seize cryptocurrency accounts with claimed connections to the militant wing of Hamas by signing an order on July 9, 2021.
The accounts held Tether (USDT), Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), XRP (XRP), Binance Coin (BNB), Zcash (ZEC), Litecoin (LTC), and other altcoins, according to the authorities at the time.
Israeli officials also seized 30 cryptocurrency wallets from 12 exchange accounts connected to Hamas in February 2022.
The exact value of the cryptocurrency assets confiscated was kept a secret.
It has been established that the use of cryptocurrency in terrorism funding is comparatively insignificant. Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics company, found that just a small percentage of cryptocurrency funds are used for illegal purposes as of early 2022.
